


Let's Christmas!

by patxaran



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: All the Christmas tags, Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Christmas Shopping, Christmas Tree, First Christmas, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Kurapika has no feelings about Christmas, Leorio hates Christmas, M/M, Neither kurapika nor leorio celebrate this holiday, Slow Burn, but for alluka they will celebrate it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 56,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patxaran/pseuds/patxaran
Summary: Kurapika is roped into helping Leorio organize Alluka's first "real" Christmas with friends and family. While Leorio drags his feet, Kurapika hits the books and reflects on his relationship with a holiday he's never actively celebrated in his entire life.Please ignore your holiday obligations and read this leopika fic I wrote in order to work out my incredibly mixed feelings about American Christmas.





	1. The First of December

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [［譯］愛在聖誕節| Let's Christmas! (節錄)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14960333) by [betty302](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betty302/pseuds/betty302)



On the first of December Kurapika arrived.  
  
This had been the one condition his friends had set for him this holiday season in lieu of gifts: He would spend every day, up until Killua and Gon arrived on the 24th, in one place, out of trouble, safe.  
  
Originally, it’d been decided he should stay on Whale Island, but Gon had changed his mind at the last minute, since, in exchange for permission to travel during the full winter holidays, he’d agreed to take on enough schoolwork to keep him shut up in his room for most of December. Kurapika hadn’t been deterred by this and had offered to come anyway and help Gon study, but Gon was adamant that he only wanted his friends to visit him if he could actually spend time with them and show them around the island. He didn’t leave Kurapika any room to argue or make it clear that sitting around studying and reading wasn’t all that boring to him. Instead, he insisted Kurapika make his way to the home of the next most stably situated member of their friend group, Leorio.  
  
And so, on the first of December, Kurapika arrived. It was already late when the flight landed. According to Leorio, it’d take nearly an hour to reach his apartment from the airport on public transportation at night, maybe even longer if Kurapika were especially unlucky catching trains. Rather than let Kurapika go through such an ordeal on his first night in a new city, Leorio said he was going send a friend who owed him a favor to pick Kurapika up.  
  
Kurapika had no way of knowing who this friend of Leorio’s would be. After making his way to the curb of the arrivals pick-up area, he took a seat on a bench. He proceeded to wait there alone for the next fifteen minutes as cars, taxis, and airport shuttles passed him by in an endless stream. He told himself that if this aimless waiting went past half an hour, he’d try to use his dowsing chain to pick Leorio’s friend out from the waiting cars. He wouldn’t resort to that just yet, though. Whipping out his chains in public always drew a few too many curious stares.  
  
Kurapika slumped down and toyed with a loose strand of yarn trailing from his right glove. The wide, chunky knit, while traditional in the region where he’d acquired his gloves, was incredibly unfashionable in the country he was in now. With a grave expression, he studied the smooth, cosmopolitan-workman type gloves favored by the men around him and buried his hands deeper into his coat pockets.  
  
Kurapika hated the awkward feeling of arriving to a new country and finding himself out of step with the modes and manners of the region. Although he’d studied so hard and so much about the outside world before setting out into it, it would’ve been impossible to know everything he’d encounter. In fact, knowing the special greetings of a hundred tribes or the dates and common traditions practiced during mid-summer festivals throughout a quarter of the world didn’t actually prepare a person for much of anything, because the native inhabitants of a country or region never expected a foreigner to know those kinds of things to begin with. They even found an odd, personal satisfaction in being the first to introduce a newcomer to their cultural particularities firsthand. In everyday life, it turned out to be more important to know local gossip, weekly national news, famous actors’ and singers’ names and greatest hits, and all the rest of the those inane topics that comprised the finer points of water cooler and coffee machine conversation. Infinitely more useful than knowing the peasant folk dress of a town nowadays only worn in stylized versions during cultural festivals, was knowing how local men tied their scarves and what material their gloves were made from.  
  
By the looks of it, Kurapika was already cutting a poor figure, and in record time, too. He slouched even further down and buried the lower half of his face in what he now perceived to be an awkwardly large scarf. He regretted having agreed to come here, and hoped that once he arrived to Leorio’s apartment, he wouldn’t have to step outside again until the holidays ended.  
  
“It’s hard to recognize you when you’re bundled up. You look like you’re freezing,” said a voice above and to the left. He craned his neck up to see the person standing over him and found a stranger.  
  
“I don’t know you,” he said flatly. “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m Karia, my friends call me Kar,” she said. “Leorio’s in my Tuesday and Thursday lecture. He asked me to get you.”  
  
Kurapika nodded and rose from the bench. He slipped off his gloves, leaving them in his pockets before reaching for the handle of his suitcase.  
  
“I couldn’t see you when I was driving around, so I had to park,” Karia explained as they crossed the lanes that circled the arrival and departure zones of the main terminal. “It’s going to take a few minutes to get to my car. You look cold, so, uh, sorry about that.”  
  
“I’m not cold,” said Kurapika. “I just arrived from a much colder place. It’s already snowing where I was. Been snowing since mid-November.”  
  
“What? Are you serious? It snows in November?”  
  
“Sometimes a little in October, too.”  
  
“You must come from someplace pretty far north.”  
  
“Actually, it’s more to do with geography than latitude. There’s an inland sea and—”  
  
Before Kurapika could launch into what promised to be a riveting treatise on continental climate factors influencing the early onset of snowfall in the region he’d just traveled from, a small car, oblivious to all the signs and lights indicating the presence of a crosswalk, shot forward and nearly ran into him and Karia. Karia stopped and shouted at the driver, making a point to shake her fist and explain too long how important it was to pay attention to where he was going. For a brief moment, Kurapika recognized something distinctly Leorio-like in her actions. So many gestures and expressions he considered particular to Leorio were now being exchanged between furious strangers right in front of him. The driver told Karia to move out of the way. Karia told him that wasn’t how crosswalks worked and he’d have to fucking wait. Kurapika watched and waited, knowing in his heart that he would never, ever assimilate so far into the local culture as to respond the same way.  
  
“What an idiot. Fucking blind. He’s gonna kill someone driving like that,” said Karia, who hadn’t stopped fuming and going on about the incident as they’d continued to the parking lot. “People this time of year are crazy. Like they’re the only folks with places to be and shit to do.”  
  
“Most airports have traffic police,” observed Kurapika with considerably less emotion. “Weird.”  
  
Kaira scoffed loud enough to interrupt him, already shaking her head. “The police only show up if someone actually hits you so they can prove it and charge a fine. They don’t get off their asses for near misses. You’re on your own out there.”  
  
“They’re supposed to help control traffic.”  
  
“Yeah, but where’s the money in that?”  
  
Kurapika shrugged and didn’t answer. He was certainly beginning to see why this person was Leorio’s friend.  
  
“Leorio told me he forgot to leave you a key,” said Karia later as she started her car and pulled out of the parking space. The walk hadn't been much longer after the crosswalk. “So, I’m going to drop you off at the university instead of his place. You’ll have to wait for him to finish his shift at work. It’s going to be like an hour and a half.”  
  
Kurapika shut his eyes and sighed, not realizing how obvious he’d been until Karia chuckled. “Yep,” she said. “I figured you’d feel that way. It sucks.”  
  
“At this rate, I should’ve rented a room in a hotel,” said Kurapika. “I should’ve gotten a taxi, gone to a hotel, and we could’ve regrouped tomorrow.”  
  
“That’s a lot of money, though,” said Karia. “If you had that kind of money, then why would I even be picking you up from the airport?”  
  
Before he could give a reason why that was, Kurapika stopped himself. He mumbled, “Good point, that’s right,” and left it at that.  
  
Karia took the opportunity to explain to Kurapika how the city was probably much more expensive that he might’ve anticipated, being from a small town in the north. Kurapika let her go on, figuring that was the polite thing to do, but he wondered vaguely where she’d got the impression he’d arrived from a small town. He’d been living in one of the richest northern ports of the Dovunque Sea as a first class citizen—a citizenship that he’d literally bought out of his own pocket after opening a casino there for the Nostrade family and making the city-state his legal residence. Frankly, it wouldn't have surprised him if the clothes he wore cost more than the car he was sitting in. However, with Karia as with Leorio, he decided it’d be unwise the draw attention to it.  
  
“I’ll drop you off outside Tero Hall,” said Karia. “Leorio said he’d meet you there, since it’s closer to the bus stop than the library. There’s a sort of area with benches inside you can wait at so you’re not out in the cold.”  
  
“Good,” said Kurapika. He stared out the window at the short, identically square buildings lining the campus street. There was a fair amount of foot traffic despite how late it was, and it took Karia several minutes to make her way halfway through the parking lot towards Tero Hall. Kurapika offered to get out and walk, but Karia told him not to bother, since she’d be stuck on the same road to leave. Kurapika told her he hoped the favor she owed Leorio was worth all this trouble, and Kaira just laughed.  
  
Karia lowered her window to order a slow moving group of pedestrians taking up half the street in front of them to get out of the way. The rush of cold air that swept in surprised Kurapika with its intensity before he realized the door of the seat behind him had been opened from outside at the same time, and someone had got in.  
  
“Dammit, Leorio, knock on the window or something before just hoping right into my car, please,” said Karia after swiveling her head back to see who it was.  
  
“Learn to lock your doors,” said Leorio as he shut the door quickly behind him. He began to remove his school bag. “Anyone could’ve just hopped in.”  
  
“Anyone just did,” muttered Karia. She looked out at the groups of people still milling about the parking lot and frowned. “Did classes get out early or something?”  
  
“Yeah, there’s an event or something, so the schedule’s weird. I forgot we were getting off early today.”  
  
“Good for you,” said Karia. “Although, you forget a lot for someone who’s training to be a doctor.”  
  
“I’ve saved all that spare mental space for medicine. Medicine’s all I actually remember.”  
  
“Yeah, you know I almost believe that,” said Kaira before sticking half her body out the window to yell at the same wandering students to get out of the road again. Just because it was a parking lot didn’t mean they should park themselves anywhere they pleased to have a chat. It meant parking for cars, not asses.  
  
“So, how was the flight?” asked Leorio, directly behind Kurapika and causing him to jump a little in surprise. A warm hand rested half on his shoulder and half on the back of the chair, so warm Kurapika could feel it even through his coat, or at least imagined he could. It was hard not to squirm away from it like child who couldn't adequately explain why he didn't want anyone to touch him and instead just ran off when anyone tried.  
  
“It was normal,” said Kurapika, turning his head so Leorio could hear him, but not enough to see Leorio. Leorio’s fingers pressed into the fabric of Kurapika's coat, then patted over it lightly, appraising it.  
  
“Are you cold?” asked Leorio in mild disbelief. His fingers brushed over one more time. “Nice coat, though.” Kurapika sighed and swatted him away.  
  
“I’m not cold,” said Kurapika. “I came in from Zhiscay. Where it’s freezing.”  
  
“Ah, I see,” said Leorio, sitting back. Karia looked over and made a sound of slow realization as she reassessed Kurapika’s appearance. Leorio told her in detail where Zhiscay was to clarify it further, and the two of them proceeded to have their own, fairly long conversation about the weather of a place Kurapika was positive neither of them had ever been. Kurapika didn't mind it, since he got to avoid speaking for most of the rest of the drive to Leorio's apartment.  
  
“I’m relieved Karia was able to recognize you at least, since I don’t exactly have a recent photo,” said Leorio after they’d got out of the car and said their goodbyes and thanks to Karia.  
  
“Yeah, good thing,” said Kurapika. He followed as Leorio led the way down the rest of the street to his building, taking Kurapika through a series of forgettable doorways and up a flight of stairs until at last, they arrived at his apartment door.  
  
“So, uh, Zhiscay is a swanky place,” observed Leorio distractedly as he searched his pockets for his keys.  
  
“I suppose it is.”  
  
“You working there?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Neat.”  
  
Leorio finally unlocked his door, and they went inside in file. Kurapika immediately recognized a stretch of the back wall opposite the desk. He’d seen it in the handful of video calls he’d made to Leorio since Leorio had moved there. During awkward silences when Kurapika ran out of things to say about himself, his eyes would wander over that exact same stretch of wall, noting every detail until he knew it by heart. Staying here until Christmas was bound to result in more of the same awkwardness as the video calls, except it'd be worse, because it’d be inescapable.  
  
“You can use the bedroom,” said Leorio. “I live on the couch anyway. I got a big one on purpose in case anyone ever needed to crash here. But then, since the couch is half a room and a whole doorway closer to my desk than the bed is, I just started using it myself.”  
  
Kurapika agreed the couch showed plenty of use. He went to set down his suitcase in the other room and make himself at home. The bed had already been made and Leorio’s personal items cleared away. Even the air smelled as though it’d been scrubbed clean, every hint of Leorio’s presence eradicated with surprising, maybe even alarming, diligence. Leorio came into the room behind Kurapika and showed him where he could store his clothes and whatever he’d brought along. Leorio said he’d try to pop in as little as possible to get what he needed from his side of the apartment's only closet. Effectively, though, the room was now Kurapika’s, and if he wanted to hole himself up in there until December 24th, Leorio wasn’t going to stop him.  
  
“Just because you rarely see me around doesn’t mean I hole myself up in places,” said Kurapika with a tired sigh. “I’m always out and working. But, my work has nothing to do with you, so you don’t get to see that.”  
  
“I was joking,” said Leorio. “It’s not that I really think you hole yourself up places.”  
  
“It was sort of passive aggressive for a joke.”  
  
Leorio ran a finger over the top of a small side table near him as though checking for dust. His tone became deceptively casual when he spoke, and Kurapika was on his guard in an instant.  
  
“Look. I know Gon and Killua had to beg to get you to spend the holidays with all of us together,” said Leorio, still extremely focused on the side table. “I also know you’d have preferred Whale Island to coming out here, so, if you’re sour about the last-minute change of plans, you don’t really have to pretend otherwise. I won’t make it a big deal.”  
  
“You’re the one who sounds a bit sour right now,” said Kurapika. Leorio hadn’t been on the phone call where Gon had finally persuaded Kurapika to stay with Leorio instead of going to Whale Island, but he seemed to already know exactly how it’d gone down. Kurapika took a deep breath to ready himself for the worst, wondering how Gon must’ve framed it when he’d told Leorio he'd got Kurapika to agree later.  
  
“You know it wasn’t personal, my preference,” said Kurapika. “I really don’t like cities very much. I would’ve preferred someplace with more nature for a holiday. A change of pace. It’s nothing to do with you.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
Kurapika was amazed at how much it sounded like Leorio didn’t believe him.  
  
“I’m sure. I’m quite sure,” said Kurapika. “I’m not still upset about the change or anything. I'm a grown-up. I’m definitely over it by now.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
Kurapika sighed. “Are you just going to keep asking me that?”  
  
“When Gon said he was too busy for you to visit Whale Island, and that you should come here instead, your immediate response was to cancel everything outright.” Kurapika winced at this unwanted reminder and nodded regretfully. He wasn't going to lie about it. “Then, after Alluka got upset that you’d cancelled and Killua threatened to hunt you down, you hemmed and hawed for fifteen more minutes before you at last, very reluctantly, agreed, the whole time sounding all put upon like a Christmas martyr.”  
  
“To be fair, I didn’t really think Gon had a solid reason for not having me and all of us go to Whale Island as planned. His aunt has an entire house. He was being unreasonable.”  
  
“So I heard.”  
  
“I’m assuming Killua told you the story, right? Gon wouldn’t have made me look that bad or called me a Christmas martyr.”  
  
“Well, Killua tells it how it is.”  
  
“And now you’re pissed because it what? Hurt your feelings? Really?” asked Kurapika. He sat down heavily on the bed, shaking this head. He knew Leorio had a delicate temper, but this was like how a child would act. How could his feelings possibly be hurt by something so stupid?  
  
“Fine,” said Kurapika, “I’m sorry. I don’t really think this is anyone’s fault but Gon’s. I still hold that Whale Island was a much better plan, but if that conviction of mine hurts your feelings, I’m sorry.”  
  
Kurapika looks dup to meet Leorio's eye. To his surprise, Leorio wasn't upset. He was gaping at him like he didn't know what Kurapika was talking about. “No,” he said slowly. “That’s not why I’m annoyed. That’s not it at all.”  
  
“Then what’s your problem?” demanded Kurapika.  
  
Leorio took a deep breath and waited a moment before admitting, suddenly shy, “Ah, well, see. The thing is," he voice dropped even lower, " _I hate Christmas._ ”  
  
Kurapika hands, which he'd thrown up in exasperation, dropped to his lap.  
  
“What?” he asked, both amazed, and also, confused.  
  
“I hate Christmas.”  
  
“How—wait, why do you hate your own country’s biggest holiday?”  
  
Leorio shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “Or well, there’s a lot of reasons, but I’m tired, and I want to go to bed soon, so I don’t feel like getting into it. It’s complicated.”  
  
Kurapika stared at him, eyes wide. “But everyone’s coming here to celebrate later," he said. "They’re coming to celebrate Christmas. Which you hate.”  
  
“I know, and it sucks. You being here reminds me I have only twenty-three days left to get my act together before everyone else shows up expecting holiday cheer and a festive mood. I’m not sure I can do it.”  
  
“And that’s why you’re mad?”  
  
“No. More just frustrated.”  
  
“With me?”  
  
“Well yeah with you, because you don’t celebrate Christmas, so you get to lock yourself up in my room and wait the whole month out, all your work done because all you had to do was agree to show up. Meanwhile I’m stuck alone out here…just…performing a Christmas miracle as I try to see if I can pull off a holiday I hate so that Alluka’s first ever Christmas in her entire life isn’t ruined.”  
  
Now that Leorio had mentioned it, Kurapika supposed it did sound more attractive to spend most of the holiday largely absent from the necessary preparations holed up in the bedroom. Though Kurapika had never celebrated Christmas himself, he’d seen the work that went into decorating and throwing holiday parties. With a sigh, he crossed his arms and scrutinized Leorio, trying to decide what to do. Leorio squirmed self-consciously under his gaze.  
  
“I didn’t mean to tell you,” said Leorio. “I thought I could pretend it was fine. On the phone it was a lot easier. But, look at me now. Less than an hour after meeting you, and I’ve cracked. Imagine what’ll be like with our friends here. Christmas is ruined.”  
  
Kurapika knew what he had to do before the thought had even formed in his mind. He was going to have to fulfill the premise of nearly every holiday film he’d ever seen up to now and “save Christmas”. The coat he still hadn’t taken off weighed heavily on his shoulders, just like the sense of responsibility that had been transferred to him with Leorio’s sudden confession.  
  
“Don’t worry,” said Kurapika. “It’s true I’ve never celebrated this holiday myself, but I am a human being alive on the planet in December, so, I’m familiar with what it’s supposed to look like. We just need, what? Some lights? Some candy? Presents?” He motioned around him. “That shouldn’t be hard to find. Especially not in this country. And it’s not like this apartment is going to take ages to decorate. It’s only a few rooms.”  
  
“What are you proposing?”  
  
“I think if we work together, we can pull it off, right? Since you know better what to do, you just bring me the stuff we need, and I’ll help set everything up. Later, when our friends arrive, I’ll help you host. You’ll have less of a burden that way. You’ll just have to make sure I don’t forget anything.”  
  
Leorio was across room in an instant and embraced Kurapika warmly, gratefully, thanking him like the offer itself was a Christmas wish come true. “You’re a great friend,” said Leorio. “You'll sacrifice yourself and suffer in the name of creating Christmas cheer for a little girl. I owe you.”  
  
“I don’t imagine it’ll be all that difficult, to be honest,” said Kurapika, shrugging, unmoved by Leorio’s effusive thanks but permitting it. Any harried medical student would see a minor inconvenience like throwing a Christmas celebration for a trio of adolescents as an insurmountable feat. When viewed from that perspective, Leorio couldn’t really be faulted for overreacting.  
  
“You’re wrong, and it’s extremely difficult,” said Leorio. “But, with you helping me out, this might just be doable.”  
  
“Okay,” said Kurapika. He reached up to pat Leorio awkwardly on the shoulder. “Whatever you say. In any case, we still have a few weeks to get ready. Should be plenty of time.”  
  
“It’s barely enough time,” Leorio assured him. Kurapika frowned, not enjoying every positive thing he was trying to say getting shot down so quickly. “But hey, we might just make it,” said Leorio. “This might just work. Sort of. Or, at any rate, good enough to not totally ruin Christmas. I hope.”  
  
“We definitely won’t ruin Christmas,” said Kurapika. “And anyway, Alluka’s never celebrated a real Christmas before, so, even if we mess up, she probably won’t know, right? We have nothing to worry about.”  
  
Leorio's face grew dark. “Don’t ever underestimate a child’s near-perfect knowledge of all things Christmas, Kurapika,” he said. “Don't you ever dare forget that, or we've already failed. Trust me.”  
  
"I...do?" said Kurapika uncertainly. He had no idea what he'd signed up for, but surely Leorio was overreaching. Surely Leorio's med-school addled brain was in panic-mode, as expected. That had to be it. Preparing for a holiday couldn't be that bad. It was just Christmas. It was just one day. 


	2. Kurapika's First Memory of Christmas

****“They put a _tree_ ,” asked Kurapika slowly, “in their _house_?”  
  
“Yes, and then they decorate it and keep it up until January.”  
  
Kurapika glanced to the side and muttered to himself, “Huh, and I thought greeting people by touching butts together was weird.” Louder, he postulated, “Must be a giant house to fit a whole tree inside.”  
  
“I believe the variety of tree is rather small,” said Professor Gafasikt, the Elder in charge of guiding Kurapika’s studies of the outside world in preparation for his exam to leave the village.  
  
“Or the variety of people is very giant,” said Kurapika, stretching out his arms as far as he could, as though he were illustrating the circumference of one of these imagined giants' waists. “If there are giant monsters in the world, then there must be gigantic people, too. Just, massive people, like mountains, right?”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous. People don’t grow to the size of mountains. Standard human anatomical structures wouldn’t sustain it. Our bones, for one, would end up crushed under our own weight before we could see over the trees. We’d need to undergo immense physiological changes to achieve a true giant’s stature, and at that point, we’d cease to appear human altogether.”  
  
“What book says that?” asked Kurapika, scooting forward in his chair with a clatter and looking over the spines facing out from the looming tower of books at his side. “I haven’t seen anything about the anatomical feasibility of giants in any of these, and I thought I was supposed to have every book about the outside world here.”  
  
“That’s because an anatomy textbook isn’t considered knowledge of the outside world, and you’re not studying to be the clan doctor,” said Professor Gafasikt. “That would be something too practical for you. You’d rather waste your intelligence on fantastic stories about things that don’t exist, like superhumans using magic to hunt treasure and mythical creatures.”  
  
“Hunter’s are real,” said Kurapika. “They have a whole organization, with real international power. There’s an exam to join.”  
  
“Yes, but I doubt they’re half as fantastic as you childishly believe them to be from your fairy-tales,” said Professor Gafasikt. He hesitated, and then sighed deeply. “I’ve seen the book that inspired you to all of... _this_ ,” he motioned glumly to the towering stacks of research material surrounding them, “and I, like the Chief Elder, don’t feel at all comfortable with letting you out into the world until I’ve seen you’ve accepted that the events of your Hunter D book are pure fantasy.”  
  
Kurapika visibly diminished down into his seat with Professor Gafasikt’s admonishments. The man was never happy when he was reviewing texts with Kurapika and shifted like a tempestuous tide between long-suffering exasperation and outright hostility. Kurapika’s mother had warned him Professor Gafasikt’s behavior was an intentional act put on to disparage Kurapika from leaving. Kurapika should try not to take it personally, though it was hard when the old man made no secret of his genuine contempt for Kurapika’s stubborn belief that the outside world had anything to offer the proud Kurta clan itself couldn’t also provide.  
  
“Instead of the fiction that’s warped your mind, what we have here, inside this collection of books and scrolls and legal documents, is the real world. This,” Professor Gafasikt pointed sharply to Kurapika’s dullest and most despised geography textbook, “is the world you are entering. It’s a world full of places you don’t know and can’t imagine, not because they are exciting or new, but because you are ignorant. More than that, you’re confined to the human world, which is the full of people who are different from you and who will use that difference to alienate you even as you, likewise, cast your own judgments on everything about them. You’re wrong if you think it’s going to be a fun adventure like your Hunter D book. In this real world, ‘adventure’ almost always refers to an arduous journey long after the fact, when the journey can be exaggerated and romanticized because the person telling the story survived it. You’re entering into hardship and crushed expectations, not adventure, and you’ll be galloping back here in less than a month without having gone further than Citat.”  
  
It would’ve been easy for Kurapika to cast his gaze down to the open book on the desk and wait for the today's tired diatribe against him to end, but the part of him that was obstinate and proud kept him staring the old man straight in the eyes. When, after long last, Professor Gafasikt finished, Kurapika raised his brows to inquire if that would be all, and if they could continue on with studying now.  
  
“Okay,” said Kurapika, “so they put up a tree, and also?” He pulled the open book closer with an air of stubborn resolve to learn it all that moment. “I see, here," he said, pointing. "Socks, too. They put those up for candy. That an old witch brings. And there's presents from three wise kings. The wisest king is Santa Claus, who comes earlier in December because his baby god, Jesus, was born.”  
  
Professor Gafasikt groaned and removed his glasses to rub his eyes. “Not quite, Kurapika. Those are the traditions of three separate countries, and you’re mixing them all up. For one, the baby Jesus is the son of the god, not the son of Saint Claus.”  
  
“Which one is their most important god, then?”  
  
“It’s just a god. It’s a monotheistic religion. They call the god just ‘god’.”  
  
“So the baby isn’t the god?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“And the wise kings aren’t the god?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Santa Claus seems really important, though. How is he not the god?”  
  
“Because he’s a saint.”  
  
“What’s a saint?”  
  
“It’s like a little god.”  
  
“But you said it’s monotheistic.”  
  
“They have some minor gods, too. One god can’t do everything.”  
  
“And the old witch?”  
  
“She’s just a witch.”  
  
Kurapika stared at tired old Professor Gafasikt in silence, trying to decided if the man were lying got him. He'd never tried to sabotage Kurapika's lesson's before. Professor Gafasikt stared right back at Kurapika. Then, he shrugged.  
  
“Are you absolutely sure you want to explore the world, Kurapika?”  
  
Slowly, Kurapika nodded. “…Yes,” he said with somewhat cautious determination. “Yes, I still do.”  
  
With this, Kurapika picked up the book again and re-read the passaged with greater attention. He was relieved to see everything Professor Gafasikt had said had been true. At the same time, he was daunted, because if it were all true, then he was going to have to re-read this chapter many more times before his final exam to leave the village.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, new reader! If it really annoys you a lot, feel free to point out my typos in the comments, and I'll go back and correct them. I've been writing this fic very quickly because of holiday obligations, so my proofreading is super rushed.
> 
> The terrific [spritepipis](http://spritepipis.tumblr.com) on tumblr has been reading over stuff for me to catch the worse typos, but the problem is I keep tweaking and sometimes even overhauling entire scenes up until the moment I hit the "post" button on a new chapter, so typos sneak back in.
> 
> So yeah, basically, if they bug you enough, just [politely] point them out, and I'll fix them. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I already know the typos are there, only I can't see them myself because I've been staring at this fic too long.


	3. Christmastime for All the Family: A Holiday Manual

Kurapika’s steepled fingers provided a high and faraway roof for the cup of mint tea on the table before him. Leorio, already dressed for school and halfway out the door, was shoving a few last-minute items into his book bag from the hall credenza. He continued speaking as he went.  
  
“Christmas,” he clarified with a tone of finality indicating this was the last point he’d make before leaving, “isn’t about getting to do what you want to do. It’s about suffering through what your friends and family think they want to do. If there’s any other meaning to the holiday, I don’t know it.”  
  
“And so that’s why you agreed for everyone to come here?”  
  
Leorio shrugged. “Why else?” he asked. He groaned in exasperation after a quick check to make sure he had everything, then disappeared into the bedroom. A second later, he was back, and returned to the kitchen table to shotgun the remainder of his now tepid coffee. Finished, he skidded back to the front door and out into the main hall, ordering Kurapika to close and lock it behind him before he raced down the stairs to the street.  
  
Kurapika was alone at last. It surprised him how cold and dark the apartment became without the bustle of Leorio racing around and swearing to himself in three languages as he got ready for the day. The morning light, growing brighter by the minute, didn't permeate the space the same as it had when there'd been movement and a small commotion. Kurapika sipped his tea and observed the silent apartment, still as a painting, as he deliberated over what to do about the problem of Christmas.  
  
For the next week, Leorio would have mostly the same schedule as today, rushing out the door too early to think straight in order to attend school, then work, then study, and finally return to his apartment late in the evening, exhausted, to start the cycle anew. Each of these review sessions, work shifts, class times, and exams were written on a wall calendar so Kurapika would know when not to expect him. At the end of the month, the school obligations would begin tapering off, but his seasonal social obligations already swelled with tentative plans made by hie friends and coworkers. Leorio had already said he was hoping to use Kurapika’s visit to get out of most of the parties and events he'd half agreed to attend. After that, Christmas itself would arrive, along with Killua, Alluka and Gon, and Leorio would be rushing all over the place once more, dividing his time between working and enjoying the rare company of his closest friends.  
  
All of this hustle and bustle, Leorio had told Kurapika while gesturing to the scribbled-over calendar, was what people were referring to when they said the holidays were stressful. There were no breaks, ever, just a forever evolving laundry list of tasks to be completed while the days counted down to the 25th like the numbers on the digital clock face of a bomb. Kurapika understood how easy it was to be overwhelmed by it, and maybe even how it could make someone hate the holiday itself. Leorio had been quick to insisted it wasn’t just all the stress that made him hate Christmas, but he’d been shoveling toast into his mouth at the same time and hadn’t been able to explain in more detail. In the back of his mind, Kurapika suspected Leorio secretly hated the holiday because he was cheap, and not celebrating it saved him money. Perhaps in his older, more responsible age, Leorio knew better and was too proud to admit that outright.  
  
The idea of being functionally alone in the apartment for days on end didn’t bother Kurapika in and of itself. The problem was that there wasn’t much to do there, and after an hour he was bored and feeling agitated. An anxious sense of urgency, of needing to prepare for the upcoming holiday, clawed at the back of his mind and destroyed his ability to relax. Too late, Kurapika realized he should’ve brought along a lot more reading material besides what was on his laptop. When he was in a restless mood, he needed something solid and heavy in his hands that would engage him completely and take his mind off of the huge responsibility he had in being the one to "save" Christmas for everyone. With a groan, he accepted the fact that that he’d have to venture out at least once from the apartment to stock up on books if he was hoping to endure a full month. He dragged himself to the bedroom to dress and sort out whatever he might need tp pick up while he was out, and in less than an hour, he was down in the street and heading for the crowded shopping district according to the fastest route given on his phone.  
  
Price hardly crossed Kurapika’s mind as he took the opportunity to localize his wardrobe a little more. He arranged for his purchases to be delivered to Leorio’s address while Leorio was out, to avoid the hassle of explaining and having to parry Leorio's offended grumblings about how Kurapika could've just borrowed his own scarves and things. The better part of Kurapika morning and afternoon ended up spent entirely on clothes, which was tiresome for him, though more interesting and practical than staring at a wall doing nothing all day. The crowds and long lines started to pick up around noon, and he nearly forgot his initial plan to stop by a bookshop. He remembered on accident while heading back to the apartment, when a bookshop window display caught his eye. One book in particular drew him closer, a manual with a bright blue cover and a brand red spine. On its face, surrounded by all the blue, was a small wintery scene of children playing in snow. The title, “Christmastime for All the Family: A Holiday Manual”, was superimposed over the snowflake-studded sky in reflective silver and gold letters.  
  
Kurapika knew this book. He’d read an incomplete version of it years ago while studying foreign cultures at a library in a city he’d already forgot the name of. He remembered he’d considered the book a fairly good resource for anyone who might find themselves in Leorio’s home country at the end of December, though back then he hadn't thought of the place as "Leorio's country", because he hadn't known anyone named Leorio at all. Flipping through a few pages in the shop, he could see why he'd been so impressed with it. It didn’t matter to him that the book was clearly intended for children, even while hosting examples of recipes and crafts he was positive few children would ever attempt. He was secure enough in his own intelligence to admit he had, at best, a child’s loose understanding of the holiday overall, and decided that this book would provide him an easy and fairly comprehensive introduction, as well as the framework he needed to build his knowledge up from practically nothing.  
  
As soon as he returning home to the apartment, Kurapika took a seat at the desk and began his studies with the children’s Christmas manual as his guide. Whenever he reached a tradition or myth he didn’t recognize or wished to understand further, he marked the page with color-coded tabs corresponding to a set of dividers in a three-ring binder. He planned to fill the binder with additional notes throughout the upcoming weeks as his base of knowledge grew and branched out. With saving Christmas, as with anything else Kurapika had ever achieved, the first step on the road to success was to thoroughly prepare by way of determined, intensive study.  
  
“Your renal course second exam is on Friday morning, so in the afternoon that day, what will you do?”  
  
Leorio half jumped out of his skin. He spun around to see Kurapika, who had appeared in the dark, empty doorway to the bedroom in a flash, like a ghost. He hadn’t been asleep, as Leorio had supposed, even though it was past ten o’clock at night. All the careful tip-toeing he’d forced himself through in respect to the late hour now made him feel foolish.  
  
“I, well, I haven’t thought about it,” admitted Leorio, embarrassed. “Take a nap? Rest? I come home pretty late when I’m working, so, I guess I’ll catch up on sleep.”  
  
Kurapika held up a small spiral ringed notebook full to bursting with lists. “When is the soonest you’ll be ready to look for supplies?” he asked. “We’ll only have a week or so to set the decorations up, and I don’t know how useful you’ll be once your social calendar kicks off, like how much stuff you’ll actually be able to get out of like you hope. You’ll probably drink every night for all I know and spend half the morning unconscious, which will waste most of our day.”  
  
“Are you tracking every damn minute until Gon and Killua arrive with Alluka?”  
  
“We have to be ready.”  
  
“For what? We just have to string up some lights and garlands and stuff. Maybe like get a little tree that can go on the desk. Easy.”  
  
“And stockings.”  
  
“Yeah, sure, stockings, too. Hang those from the radiator, I guess.”  
  
“And ornaments.”  
  
“When I said tree, I was imagining it decorated.”  
  
“And cookies. And candies. And a village. And a baby. And a Santa. And stars and bells and ribbons and…” with a sigh Kurapika opened the little notebook and flipped to the approriate page to refresh his memory, “a log, candles, wreaths, lots of red and green, a little witch, gingerbread objects and people, and candy canes. And also, by the way, the book I read says the candy canes are mint flavored, but is that true? Mint tastes like medicine, so why would it be a candy flavor? Why would children eat that?”  
  
Leorio shrugged, his eyes having widened considerably as Kurapika had read off the list to him. “I’m not even sure what all the things you said are,” he said. “Also, I’ve never had a candy cane. That’s some kind of York Shin thing. I always assumed they were strawberries and cream from the pictures.”  
  
“How have you never had a candy cane? This is your holiday,” said Kurapika, pointing at the notebook.  
  
“Yeah, but it’s different depending where in the world you are.”  
  
“So then, why do all the decorations have candy canes? I’ve seen them here, in this city. It’s an extremely common motif.”  
  
“Because I guess most of the decorations come from York Shin or other countries where they eat that stuff.”  
  
“But it’s not even your tradition.”  
  
“Yeah, but we recognize it as a Christmas thing. So, it’s the same either way. Trees aren’t from this country, either, and everyone’s got a tree nowadays. Stuff just gets popular, you know?”  
  
“I _don’t_ really know,” said Kurapika. “Nothing about this holiday seems very well organized.”  
  
“It’s a global society, Kurapika. Stuff’s interconnected.”  
  
“Should I look up traditions for this country only, then, or all the most internationally agreed upon traditions?”  
  
“Do whatever’s popular. Alluka won’t really care.”  
  
“But I have no sense of what’s popular.”  
  
“Just go with the first stuff you think about when you think about Christmas.”  
  
Kurapika frowned and crossed his arms. He stared at a spot on the floor for a long time, thinking hard about whatever the first thing that came to his mind about Christmas actually was. After a day of studying nothing but Christmas, it was hard to tell. Leorio took the time to squeeze past him into the bedroom to grab a set of lounge clothes from a closet drawer.  
  
“Are you serious, Kurapika? Is it really this difficult?” asked Leorio in astonishment as he stepped back out into the living room pulling a loose t-shirt over his head. “Did you grow up under a rock?”  
  
Kurapika was sitting on the couch now, flipping through his notebook slowly. He sighed.  
  
“To be perfectly honest, Leorio, I can’t always remember which day is supposed to even be Christmas,” he said. “Is it the 23rd? Fourth? Fifth? Sometimes I feel like it has to be the seventh. So, I have to remind myself which day it falls on every year so that I don’t schedule anyone a shift who celebrates it. For me, it’s always a hassle, like remembering the birthday of someone you don’t care about.”  
  
Leorio tired to hold back, but ended up laughing at Kurapika good-naturedly. He continued to chuckle to himself as he went to prepare the coffee machine for the next morning. Kurapika observed him icily. He didn’t feel like he deserved to be laughed at for failing to remember a date that held no cultural significance for him whatsoever. What was so funny about that? Leorio didn’t even like Christmas. What did he even care?  
  
“I’m sorry,” said Leorio, managing to sound sincere even as he still broke into the occasional grin. “I just, it’s amazing. I feel a little bit oddly vindicated in not celebrating this holiday. I’m not laughing at you, but more just the fact that this holiday isn’t really the given, global sensation most people seem to treat it as. Does your culture even have a similar festival to this?”  
  
“Not really,” grumbled Kurapika. “We have a holiday with gifts, but it’s earlier, in autumn.”  
  
“Of course. Kids loving presents is universal, isn’t it? I guess every culture has that.”  
  
“No. It wasn’t really like a holiday with presents like you give to children here. It was more like sharing your family’s surplus with everyone else in the village, to equal out the distribution of resources. Or well, I see it that way now.”  
  
“Oh right. You grew up in a pretty small village. That makes sense. Of course you would have a more practical purpose tied in to a celebration.”  
  
“It wasn’t even my favorite holiday,” said Kurapika. He frowned. “We just visited people’s houses, and it was boring and took forever. I remember sitting there for ages while the grown-ups never stopped talking. I’d run away and hide in the woods when my parents had to go out so that they wouldn’t bring me. I also ran away if I heard people coming over to our house. If it was too late to run, I’d sit really quietly in my room and hope no-one realized I was home.”  
  
“That sounds exactly like how I’d celebrate Christmas if I could get away with it,” said Leorio with a wistful smile. “By avoiding it to the utmost of my ability, silently hoping and praying no-one realizes I’m around.”  
  
“In a city that’s probably easy.”  
  
“You’d think so, but I always end up getting dragged into something anyway. That’s the thing about Christmas, you see. It drags you in. Whether you want it to or not.”  
  
“From what I’ve seen of the holiday so far, I can’t say that’s wrong,” agreed Kurapika, albeit begrudgingly. “Maybe you shouldn’t fight it, then? Maybe it’s not something you’re supposed to fight.”  
  
“I will fight it until I die,” said Leorio. “That is,” he conceded after half a beat, “unless a child is involved. In which case, I’ll let it drag me in. Case in point,” he indicated Kurapika notebook, “what we have to do now.”  
  
“So when can we get started?” asked Kurapika. A slight eagerness filled him at the opportunity to get back on the subject of planning. “You made it all sound really time sensitive last night, so I’d like to use our limited allotment of days to the fullest.”  
  
“That’s right,” said Leorio. He crossed the room and pointed the desk lamp at the calendar on the wall, considering the dates until his upcoming exam. “We can do some preliminary shopping on the fifth,” he decided. “I haven’t got class that afternoon, and it’s good to get an early start to beat the crowds. From the eighth onwards, most people begin decorating, so we should get that out of the way before the rush starts, right?”  
  
“Sounds like a good idea,” said Kurapika, jotting it down in the notebook on his knee. “I’ll look into decorations first, then. That’ll be step one, and then we’ll just take it from there. Before we know it, it’ll be Christmas.”  
  
“Oh trust me, we’ll know it,” said Leorio, yawning as he pointed the lamp back down to the desk. “It’s not a holiday you can forget about around here, I promise you that.” 


	4. All Alone on Christmas

Whenever Kurapika showed up to a new town and discovered all of its inhabitants dressed in bizarre outdated fashions and smiling far too readily, he’d mutter to himself softly, without fail, “it must be some kind of festival,” and mentally prepare himself for the over-familiarity of strangers that would soon follow.   
  
On the bright side, it was almost guaranteed Kurapika wouldn’t go hungry on his way through town, due to the festive generosity of the townspeople cheerily presenting him with samples of traditional holiday fare. On the not so bright side, the food was almost universally sweets, and their quantity didn’t come close to contending with the many more times he was offered free drinks instead. The struggle was always to find a balance between accepting free, albeit empty, calories and dodging free alcohol. Certain towns made this much, much harder than others, resulting in something of a mixed bag every time he arrived in a town celebrating a festival he didn't know.   
  
Sometimes Kurapika was able to get a lay of the land before arriving and could anticipate a festival before he ended up confusedly wandering into the middle of it. In these instances, the story of how he spent the festival would play out rather differently. Charity was one of the most exalted virtues in holiday traditions, especially if the festival in question was predominantly religious. This meant that if he could find a soup kitchen or some such place, there’d be better (or at least a greater and more varied quantity of) food than average. On top of that, unusually high-spirited volunteers embodying a communal spirit of giving and celebration tended to be the ones hosting the affair in place of the kitchen's usual staff. To them, holidays required treats and special attention, which were served up in generous portions, especially to a boy on his own, travelling without family and quick to relay a sob story about being scapegoated and cast out of his rural clan by cruel elders. Kurapika didn’t consider it a true lie, because it was a story he related more in insinuations rather than outright statements. Once the person asking about him had filled in the gaps and assumed what they wanted to know, all they could do was give him their sympathy and then an extra serving of roasted yam while wishing him the best for the season. In this way, Kurapika could shamelessly exploit most holidays he found himself in the midst of throughout the course of the year. Christmas, of course, was no exception, even if he did struggle to remember exactly which day it fell on.   
  
“Bless you. You’re the future of those people, and it’s a shame your poor family couldn’t see that,” said a grandmotherly woman in a bulky, multi-colored sweater whose seasonal motif Kurapika couldn’t make out. He later learned it was jingle bells. A few bunches of them were attached at the upper arms, tied to close to the fabric to ring, but clinking with a hollow, metallic sound every time the woman reached to fill a plate.   
  
“Thanks,” said Kurapika, except with three more syllables than the word required. Although he spoke the Hunter language with virtually no accent at this point, he felt safer putting one on when he was forced to go to strangers for charity. It felt less like callous deception when he could partially fool himself by encompassing the role he was taking on. Also, he didn’t feel like he was good at misleading people, and hoped his nervousness and hesitation when he tried not to answer too many questions was mistaken for a struggle to express himself in a foreign language.   
  
“Here, have some more turkey and gravy. Bless you. Who knows when you’ll have such a wholesome meal again? What a shame. Alone on Christmas.”   
  
Kurapika smiled and thanked the woman again before turning away to take a seat in a relatively empty corner table, far from the rest of the diners. He disliked turkey and had no feelings whatsoever about more or less gravy. All he cared was that it was free and better than an extra serving of the cheaper, dry potatoes, which he’d been dreading. He tucked in, careful not to hurry and make himself sick, though he was nearly starving. He jolted upright and almost choked on a mouthful of turkey halfway through the meal when an unexpected hand rested on his shoulder. Behind him, the grandmotherly voice informed him they were going to sing some carols, and that it was going to be a lot of fun. He should be excited. Bewildered, Kurapika stammered that his name was Kurapika, not Karol.   
  
“No, no,” said the woman, laughing gently, “I mean songs. Christmas songs. You know _carols_.”   
  
Instantly, Kurapika replayed in his mind what the woman had said before and went red with embarrassment. Oh well, he thought, at least mishearing something that obvious lent some credence to his act of not understanding the language. In fact, with that bad of a mistake, maybe he shouldn’t even consider it an act.   
  
“Don’t worry,” the woman reassured him. “It’ll be fun. Also, here, I got you some extra bread rolls. Bless you. Such a shame. Alone on Christmas. You don’t have to thank me. Merry Christmas.”   
  
The songs and festivities that followed after were not at all what Kurapika considered fun. What he found fun was the hot chocolate, which he got extra servings of as the youngest person there, since most of the adults drank coffee. He was offered a place to stay at a local residence for homeless youth, which was where one of the volunteer cooks worked during the week. He accepted it along with a handful of candy someone got him from their car. A smiling couple drove him and introduced him, explaining his situation to the manager. Less than fifteen minutes there, after being given a bed and a toothbrush and told to get a good night’s rest, he got up and crept through the dormitory, stealing several pairs of socks, a knapsack, and a child’s coat. He then tiptoed to the kitchen to stock up on whatever non-perishable foods items he could carry. The caregivers and staff were, as he’d expected, too busy standing watch over the Christmas tree to keep errant children from sneaking around trying to see Santa while the adults put out bags of donated presents.    
  
Kurapika was already halfway out a back window, following his bag feet first into a pile of snow, when a little boy, who’d fallen asleep hiding in a coat rack nearby, spotted him and asked him if he were Santa Claus.   
  
“Um, no,” said Kurapika, baffled as he continued to hold himself up in the window frame. “Do I look like a fat old man with a beard to you?”   
  
“Are you his helper?”   
  
“You better hope not,” said Kurapika. “Because then I’d beat you and put you in a bag so I could eat you, because you’re bad and hiding in a coat rack.”   
  
The little boy stared at him, wide-eyed and unmoving. In the darkness, Kurapika couldn’t make out his quivering lip until it was too late, and he was already crying.   
  
“I’m not Santa’s helper. I’m a kid, like you,” said Kurapika much more gently. He hoisted himself up and tumbled in his haste back into the narrow hallway. The little boy backed away, frightened, but didn’t run.   
  
“Ow. See?” asked Kurapika, standing and spreading out his arms. “I’m a kid. Don’t worry. I was joking. I’m sorry I scared you.”   
  
“Why are you coming in here through the window?”   
  
“I’m not coming in,” said Kurapika. “I’m going out.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because, I’m busy.”   
  
“You’re busy?”   
  
“I have a lot to do.”   
  
“Are you going to go look for Santa outside? He comes in through the chimney, and the chimney is down the hall, and there’s no fire now, so he won’t burn. I don’t know how he comes in houses when they have a fire in the chimney. My dad had the fire in the chimney every day. He said Santa doesn’t burn because he’s wet with snow.”   
  
“You’re dad’s probably right,” said Kurapika, not really following what the boy was talking about.   
  
“My dad’s dead.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“He was sick.”   
  
“I see. That’s too bad.”   
  
“I miss him.”   
  
Kurapika took a deep breath. He looked around the empty hall, unsure what to do about the boy. He didn’t want someone to find them, and he especially didn’t want anyone to realize he was stealing from them and running away.    
  
“Hey,” he said, lowering his voice if sharing some big intrigue, “you should keep waiting for Santa, okay? Maybe Santa will be here soon. If you don’t hide, you might scare him, and he’ll run away.”   
  
“He’ll run away?”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Why will he run away?”   
  
“He runs away if he sees you. And then you don’t get presents.”   
  
“I won’t get presents?” There was renewed note of terror and worry in the little boy’s voice that Kurapika hadn’t meant to inspire to the acute degree it seemed he had.   
  
“I mean, yes, you still get presents, but they’re all socks.”   
  
The little boy, who had once again been on the verge of tears, stopped crying. He was too confused to cry.   
  
“Socks?”    
  
“Yeah. Trust me. I know,” said Kurapika, thinking fast. “I saw him at my house like an hour ago, and so, he left me all these socks.” Kurapika reached into his coat pockets to show the little boy all the pilfered socks he was carrying with him. “I’ve been trying to find him, going from house to house, so I can tell him I’m sorry and ask for my real presents back.”   
  
“Will he give you your real presents?”   
  
“I hope so. I’ve been really good this year.”   
  
“I’ve been good, too,” said the little boy, speaking a little too loud in his enthusiasm to share this with Kurapika. Kurapika shushed him and told him to hide, or he might wake up the other kids, and then they’d all get socks for Christmas and nothing else.   
  
“Here,” said Kurapika after the little boy had carefully concealed himself again among the coats. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three candy canes that one of the volunteers had given him after dinner. “I’m sorry about your dad, but Merry Christmas. Have this.”   
  
The little boy clasped a tiny hand around the candy eagerly, whispering “candy canes” in awe under his breath. He hugged them close and stared at Kurapika. Kurapika wasn’t really sure what was so great about candy canes and shrugged back at him, embarrassed, before turning to the window.   
  
“Anyway, um, goodbye,” said Kurapika swinging his lower body back through the window frame and landing on the soft snow outside. He stood on tip-toe and waved to the little boy who didn’t move, but just kept staring. Gingerly, Kurapika reached up and shut the window. He then took up his snow-covered bag up from the ground and crossed the yard with it on his back, hoping over the fence, and going, following the street out of town.


	5. Shopping Spree

“What exactly is your problem with Christmas?” asked Kurapika, pushing the cart of decorations ahead of him and Leorio as they stood side by side in what felt like an endless line to the register.

“I don’t believe in it,” said Leorio distractedly. He was looking through the items in the cart, trying to get a rough estimate of the total price. It seemed like a lot, he’d kept saying earlier, and had repeated every time Kurapika slipped something else in. Kurapika had shrugged and told him not to worry every time.

“What’s hard to believe in?” asked Kurapika. “In peace, and love, and goodwill to all mankind?”

Leorio frowned downwards, never once averting his eyes from the inside of the cart. It wasn’t clear if his displeasure was directed at Kurapika, or a price tag he'd read. “Are you reciting a Christmas song at me, Kurapika? Really?”

“Is that from a song?” asked Kurapika. “It just came to my head. I have no idea where it’s from.”

Leorio sighed heavily and rejoined Kurapika at the back of the cart. “It sounds like a song,” he said. Kurapika repeated that he really had no idea if it were. Leorio didn't respond.

“So, then, do you not believe in the Jesus part?” ventured Kurapika after a pause.

“Not especially, no," said Leorio. "I don’t think most people deeply consider the religious reasons for the holiday anyway, though. At least not past a superficial level." He thought a second and added, “Speaking of, I’d prefer we celebrate a pretty secular Christmas with the kids. We’re definitely not going to put up a nativity or anything. I’m not trying to indoctrinate them.”

“So we should put the Santa back?” asked Kurapika, pointing to the Santa Claus shaped cookie jar that hadn’t been as weirdly proportioned as the reindeer one next to it on the shelf.

“Put the Santa back?”

“It’s a religious figure.”

For a second, Leorio was stumped. “I mean, yes,” he admitted finally, “but no. I mean, we don’t have to put the Santa back. He’s like, not that religious.”

“Please tell me what he is, then,” said Kurapika, nudging the cart forward a few more centimeters. “I’ve never been able to understand if Christmas is for him, or for the baby.”

Leorio shrugged. “I think Santa invented Christmas, maybe?”

“What? Nothing I’ve read said he invented Christmas. He’s not a god.”

“No, he invented the presents for kids. He gave some kids presents, and then I guess God or Jesus or somebody made him immortal so he can always give presents on Christmas.”

“Why?”

“Because people in York Shin prefer holidays that give them reasons to buy stuff, not reasons to go to a church or something.”

“And the elves? And the reindeer?”

“I have no idea. My people didn’t invent Santa. It’s something we pretend for kids.”

Kurapika pushed the cart forward sharply before an old man with a huge light-up snowman under his arm could cut ahead of them. “It’s one thing to not celebrate your own culture’s holiday, Leorio,” he said. “Another is to know as little about it as you seem to. It’s logical that I don’t understand everything well, because it’s not my culture, but you, you have no excuse.”

“Don’t blame me. It’s not something anyone makes a point of knowing. I’m no exception.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one really cares why we do the stuff we do. We just do it. It’s actually part of the reason I don’t agree with celebrating these kinds of holidays. There’s no meaning to it, and the meaning it should supposedly have, following the religion, I don’t believe in. Feels hypocritical to celebrate a holiday of a religion that isn’t mine.”

“But if you are in a place where it’s a common thing, you should celebrate it a little to show you respect the local customs, right?”

Leorio scoffed. “Why?”

“Because that’s how things are in the place where you are living. So, you have to respect it.”

“You don’t have to perfectly conform to every place where you live. You still have to retain a bit of yourself.”

Kurapika took a breath to reply to this, but didn’t speak. He grumbled and pulled his notebook from his coat pocket and began to flip through it instead, feigning checking on something he was worried he’d forgot.

“Is there a star?” he asked. “For the tree?”

“Yes. Under your ridiculous table runner with the silver and gold fringe.”

“Well, you might not know because apparently you don't know anything about Christmas, actually” said Kurapika, “but there’s a song about silver and gold. It sounded like a crucial element. We’ll probably need some.”

“Yeah, we will,” muttered Leorio. “We’ll need lots to pay for all of this.”

Kurapika shut the notebook with a snap. While Leorio had been dithering over whether three packs of tinsel or five would be enough for the living room, Kurapika had whipped out the same notebook and revealed the exact measurements of each room in the apartment, complete with labeled diagrams carefully sketched over three full pages. For a long time, Leorio had been caught somewhere between subtly horrified and deeply impressed by it all. Kurapika, meanwhile, had taken the opportunity to prevail over Leorio’s initial objections to them buying a full-sized tree by saying they could infinitely fit one because Kurapika had already allotted the space for it in his plans.

“So, we’ll go half on all this, except the tree, which you’re paying two thirds of because you insisted on it,” said Leorio, having at last finished tallying up the full price of everything in his head. “So, that should come out about—”

“I’m paying for all of this,” interrupted Kurapika, as though it were already understood between them and Leorio had just forgot. Leorio made a face and shook his head.

“No, no, that’s too much. I’ve prepared both mentally and financially to take this hit, so, don’t try to be generous with me here. This is just one of those merry little pitfalls of the season. We spend a lot of money for stuff that’s useless all the rest of the year. It’s like a tradition or something.”

Kurapika leaned forward to push the cart forward with the creeping line.

“No, I’ll pay,” he said again. “For me, this is not so much.”

Leorio’s frown deepened. He stared at Kurapika, but Kurapika keep his gaze focused ahead on the slowly nearing registers.

“Kurapika, this is almost thirty-five thousand jenni. Like, two hundred fifty orue. Or, three hundred dollars. Hell, _five hundred thousand lir._ Do any of these monetary values mean anything to you? I can list more if you need me to make it clearer. ”

Kurapika smiled in spite of himself and glanced over to meet Leorio’s eye. “You think me measuring your apartment is picky,” he said, “when you can estimate near instantaneous conversion rates for every world currency that exists?”

“It’s only fifteen off the top of my head.”

“ _Only fifteen_.”

“And what’s so weird about that? I think it’s useful to know.”

Kurapika was already laughing under his breath and shaking his head as he leaned into the cart again.

“My point is that I can’t make you pay for all this,” said Leorio. “It’s too much of a burden for one person.”

“And my point is that I make many times more than what you make in a month, so it’s not fair for us to split this by half.”

“Well...that’s probably true,” admitted Leorio, considering it and readjusting the final price estimations in his head. “I guess I’ll pay a third, then.”

“Less than that.”

“W-what?”

“My sweater costs as much as this entire cart, Leorio.”

“ _You’re joking._ ”

“No.”

Leorio stopped dead as Kurapika kept moving up with the cart. He didn’t take another step until the person behind him nudged him in the back with a cardboard reindeer. His mind was so befuddled by shock and disbelief he'd hardly realized he was moving.

“How much do you make, net, Kurapika? How much money do you have?”

Kurapika shrugged and didn’t answer.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“No,” said Kurapika, “I mean I’m not going to tell you. I’m avoiding the question. You don’t need to know how much it is.”

“But….”

“You already know my occupation.”

“Yes, but….”

“And anyway, people with our unique of credentials shouldn’t really consider money an object. It’s only like that for you still because you live like a normal person and go to school.”

“But your sweater costs thirty-five thousand jenni. Are you serious?”

Kurapika reached around to the back of his neck and pulled some of the sweater out past his scarf so Leorio could read the brand off the back. Leorio swore under his breath in his own language and then helped Kurapika tuck it back in.

“Why?” asked Leorio simply. “Why so much?”

“I wouldn’t look successful if I didn’t shop at expensive places. Yes, sure, I could wear whatever I wished if I wanted to, but then no-one would know how much money I can afford to spend. Really, I thought you’d be the kind of person who understood stupid things like this.”

“I do understand it, I just thought…” Leorio grappled over what to say, “…I just had some kind of impression of you that you wouldn’t do something like that.”

“I don’t see why not. It’s a standard practice in my current trade,” said Kurapika. “I have to follow the norm. I have to look the part. It inspires confidence in my ability, and in the abilities of those who work for me.”

“But thirty-five thousand….”

“It’s a very nice sweater, Leorio.”

“I mean. Fucking better be,” muttered Leorio, still mortified. "And you're wearing it here of all places, among all use plebs, just at the store buying cheap Christmas shit. Damn." When they reached the register at last, he allowed Kurapika to step forward and pay the entire bill. He stared intently at Kurapika throughout the entire transaction, as though seeing him in an all-new light, and unsure what his feelings were about it. Kurapika acted like he didn’t notice, and made him carry the long, heavy box with the tree inside it all the way back to the apartment himself.

 


	6. The Holiday Spirit

The decorations in the public spaces of the Nostrade manor went up in the last days of November, right before the official start of the holiday season. The household staff had notified Kurapika of this well in advance so that the family’s bodyguards could properly screen the workers coming and going daily from the property. The amount of people listed had alarmed Kurapika, as it indicated a huge, perhaps not entirely necessary, expense. Neon hadn’t been able to write any new fortunes since she’d come back from York Shin in September, but her father insisted on putting on a full (and more importantly, full-priced) Christmas at the Nostrade manor. He was confident that once his daughter saw Christmas arriving with all of her marvelous presents under the tree, she’d be pulled out of her slump and busily scribbling down fortunes by the busload before the year's end.  
  
Kurapika had less faith in Neon’s recovery than his employer, but was so far forced to keep this to himself. Light never failed to tell Kurapika that Neon was being childish and dramatic, milking the life-threatening circumstances she’d suffered in York Shin for all they were worth. Although Kurapika cautioned him against it, the man had followed through on what he’d done every year and bought his daughter three separate sets of outrageously expensive gifts. The first set was for Neon to open mid-December, when she’d inevitably complain that the wait for Christmas Day was taking too long and that she wanted her gifts early. The second set, no smaller than the first, would give her something to open on Christmas morning so she wouldn’t miss out on the fun. The third set, which was also the priciest since it was basically as much jewelry as could fit into a generously sized stocking, was for January, on the sixth, so that Neon could celebrate every gift-giving day of the season around the world.  
  
While Light’s own gifts for Neon were extravagant beyond measure, they faced stiff competition from the gifts that flooded in from Neon’s many wealthy and powerful fans in the criminal underworld. Granted, with the deaths of the Ten Dons, Neon’s fanbase had taken a considerable hit, but her most loyal clients’ enthusiasm for her remained unwavering. Neon couldn’t keep a secret for longer than a week, so it was already known that the immense stress she’d suffered in York Shin had impacted her fortune-telling abilities. For the time being, most were responding with concern and support, while at the same time eagerly anticipating her return to work, especially as political instability grew within the mafia community and members’ futures grew more and more uncertain in the power vacuum left by the dead dons.  
  
It was because of Neon’s admirers’ overwhelming support of her that Kurapika and his colleagues now spent hours every morning inspecting incoming packages to guarantee they were safe to bring into the house. This was a tedious assignment none of the bodyguards enjoyed. Even when the monotony broke, such as when Kurapika had been forced to track down the origins of a petrified foot in a velvet-lined chest to make ensure it was a collector’s item and not some faraway regional family’s idea of a threat, the work didn’t improve by much. The petrified foot, for example, had taken over half a day to track down. For obvious reasons, sending illegally acquired human remains had needed to be a covert operation, but Kurapika wouldn’t have been doing his job if he’d just assumed the foot to be a harmless addition to Neon’s collection. Forty-seven phone calls and hours of misdirection later, he’d finally narrowed in on his target and asked them to confirm definitively, directly, if they’d been the one to send Neon Nostrade a petrified foot. Fortunately, they had been. The cherry atop the wasted day sundae, though, was that this critical final call had lasted all of three minutes. Upon hanging up, glancing at the clock, and realizing how much of his day had been utterly wasted on a single task, Kurapika wanted nothing more than to scream. Instead, with stoic determination, he went back to work, hurrying to catch up with a guard shift he was already late for.  
  
Kurapika returned to the main house in time to witness Neon celebrating the first of her standard three Christmases. It was the fifteenth of December already, so Kurapika was impressed at how long she’d lasted. As he stuck his head into her rooms to dismiss whoever had covered his shift, she waved at him with the arm of a giant teddy bear and greeted him in a deep voice, supposedly meant to be that of the bear itself. Kurapika nodded respectfully back, and gestured to for the bodyguard on duty, Basho, to come join him at the door.  
  
“I can take this,” said Kurapika. “I’m sorry about the extra shift. I’ll work out the schedule so I can compensate you later.”  
  
“You get tied up with that arm all afternoon?” asked Basho.  
  
“It was a foot. And yes. I did.”  
  
“Ah, right,” said Basho, moving his own foot subtly as he remembered it. “So, was it a gift, or…?”  
  
“A gift.”  
  
“And would that be a today gift, or a wait ‘til actual Christmas gift?”  
  
Basho gestured back into Neon’s quarters, where she was already opening another present. This one was a tall box that wobbled precariously and threatened to tip over as she pulled the paper off. Neon's two attendants rushed forward to hold it steady so she could finish unwrapping it with gusto. From inside appeared a full set of golf clubs and different golfing accessories. Neon, who’d been talking about taking up golf as a sport, cheered and clapped her hands.  
  
“I haven’t re-wrapped the foot or anything yet, so, I guess we’ll save it for actual Christmas,” said Kurapika. “I’ll leave it to one of her attendants. It’s not really my job to wrap things.”  
  
“Are you sure it’s not? You seemed to take on a fair amount of extra jobs around here these days,” said Basho. Kurapika didn’t reply, but stepped past him into the room. He held the door so Basho could leave. Basho, however, did not.  
  
“You’re wearing a few too many hats now that you’re head of security,” he said while Kurapika feigned indifference. “Instead of having your jobs conflict all the time and rescheduling the shifts you miss, you should just let the rest of us do the bodyguarding. You’re really more of a manager now, I’d say. Right?”  
  
Kurapika shook his head while also silently imploring Basho to leave. “I’d prefer to stay in the field as much as I can, regardless of whatever additional responsibilities I may acquire,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to get lazy.”  
  
Basho chuckled at the thought of Kurapika ever becoming someone anyone might call lazy. He departed, wishing Kurapika a good evening standing guard over Neon’s room. A moment later, Neon was calling Kurapika over to help her rearrange the stuffed animals on her bed in order to accommodate the new, gigantic teddy bear she'd been waving at him with before. An attendant politely pointed out that this sort of task wasn’t exactly a bodyguard’s duty, but Neon only scoffed and told her Kurapika looked bored standing around anyway. He could get some exercise.  
  
“Tell my dad I need a new bed,” said Neon after several minutes of trying to find the proper ratio of stuffed animals to massive teddy bear and failing because everything together plus Neon herself didn’t fit. “The bear’s definitely too big for this one.”  
  
“I’ll see what I can do,” Kurapika promised, at the same time noting that the bed Neon currently used was already unusually large. According the household staff, the mattress and the frame had been custom made to accommodate her and her stuffed animals right after her last birthday.  
  
“For now, I guess you all can check if there are any more presents under the tree,” said Neon. Kurapika and her attendants went to the tree and knelt down to get a good look. Kurapika couldn’t remember anything especially small in the inventory for today, but it was possible a ring or small electronic device had been added in by Light on a whim when he’d arranged for the gifts to be delivered to Neon’s rooms.  
  
“Here,” said Eliza. Hanging from the tree, instead of on the ground, was a small, wrapped case. Kurapika suppressed a grimace as he recognized what it had to be, and allowed Eliza to take it to Neon.  
  
“It’s so tiny,” murmured Neon as she turned the case over in her hands. She was about to shake it, but Eliza warned her it might be fragile. Delicately, she plucked at the tissue paper wrapping. It fell off with a soft crinkle, and Neon let out gasp at the tiny, bejeweled box in her palm. With even more care than before, she undid the clasp and opened it. Inside was a single knucklebone cushioned in the distinctive, brightly embroidered fabric that was a characteristic handicraft of the Sidi people.  
  
Neon beamed, beyond delighted.  
  
“This is exactly what I wanted!” she cheered, twirling around with the box held close to her heart. “It’s perfect. A new treasure!”  
  
Kurapika had no one to exchange uncomfortable glances with and so kept his immediate judgement to himself. Neon’s two attendants were too good at their jobs to allow any critical expressions to show on their faces, but Kurapika wanted nothing more than to recoil sharply as Neon held the case out excitedly for everyone to get a long, appreciative look at the treasure inside. Without breaking his professional character, Kurapika leaned in as expected and nodded cooly.  
  
“Did you find this one for me, Kurapika?” asked Neon. “You always find the best treasures.”  
  
“Your father requested it, and I arranged for it to be found. Basho, however, did most of the actual work retrieving it for us.”  
  
“Aw, then it’s a shame he wasn’t here to see me open it,” said Neon with a pout. “Tell him how happy I am when you see him. I’m sorry he couldn’t see.”  
  
“It’s a gift from your father, Miss Nostrade, not Basho. Don’t worry about that.”  
  
“But you said Basho found it.”  
  
“I told him to find it. Your father told me to tell him to find it. The shame is your father isn’t here to watch you open all your presents from him.”  
  
Neon let out a burst of laughter and rolled her eyes at Kurapika. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kurapika,” she said, stressing the last syllable of his name obnoxiously, like she always did when she wanted him to know she wasn’t going to let him convince her of anything. “Dad’s on a trip right now. How would he watch me open presents? If I’d wanted that, I’d have waited until he was back.”  
  
Kurapika wasn’t about to argue with Neon. He didn’t have the stamina, and anyway, it was unprofessional to disagree with his employer about something unrelated to her protection. Taking a cue from Neon’s attendants, he nodded and told Neon she was right. He expected the matter to end there, but it turned out there was a point Neon wanted to make even though Kurapika had already conceded.  
  
“You know, it’s very important,” she said matter-of-factly, “to consider the contributions of everyone, not just the person telling everyone what to do. I think Basho deserves appreciation for his hard work.”  
  
“I’m not saying he doesn’t,” said Kurapika. “I’ll tell him you thanked him, if that’s what you want. It’s not a problem.”  
  
“Good. He’s done a good job. I’m very happy with all his hard work.”  
  
“Indeed,” agreed Kurapika, struggling to wrap his head around why Neon wanted to thank Basho for doing the same sort of job he always did. “He works very well. I'll definitely let him know.”  
  
A few hours and several more re-attempts to organized Neon's stuffed animals later, Kurapika’s shift finally ended. He didn’t prolong his stay, but left as soon as the next guard arrived relieve him. He warned them briefly that it looked like Neon would be up all night enjoying her presents. The guard didn’t show their immediate feelings about this news, though Kurapika heard them eagerly accept a cup of coffee from one of Neon’s attendants as he shut the door behind him.  
  
Kurapika had already completely forgot his promise to speak to Basho and thank him. When he unexpectedly crossed paths with him in the hall of the bodyguards’ quarters, he froze and stared for a moment, instantly piquing Basho’s curiosity. Basho was carrying a tray of snacks and a case of beer to his room, and he extended a friendly invitation to Kurapika to unwind with him. Kurapika turned him down by force of habit. He then remembered Neon.  
  
“I have something to tell you from Miss Nostrade,” said Kurapika. “She wanted me to thank you.”  
  
Basho furrowed his brow as he leaned backwards into the door to his room to push it open. Kurapika stepped forward to hold it. “Thank me? For...what?” asked Basho cautiously.  
  
“Getting her the Sidi Clan’s knuckle.”  
  
Basho only murmured, “huh,” at this information, as though it were an interesting development, but at the same time something he’d somewhat seen coming.  
  
“You aren’t surprised?” asked Kurapika. He’d followed Basho into his room automatically and took a proffered seat in the desk chair while Basho went straight for the bed.  
  
“No,” said Basho. “I’m not. She’s been like that for a while now.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“Well,” said Basho. He cleared a spot on the bedside table for the snack tray. The beers he kept tucked close at his side. “You don’t see her so often because you’re mostly running things now, but our boss has become a little different ever since York Shin. It’s hard to put a finger on, but there’s something there, something that wasn’t there before. I mean, we hardly knew her before the York Shin Auctions, but still. She’s changed.”  
  
“It’s not a very big change if I’m only noticing it now,” said Kurapika. “It seems too sudden to me. If it were because of the auctions, it wouldn’t have been this quick.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I mean, it’s probably the auctions, or….”  
  
“Or?”  
  
“Or, maybe she’s one of those people who suddenly thinks about others during major holidays,” said Basho. Kurapika stared back blankly. “You know,” Basho explained a little more. “Kinda like how kids started behaving when it’s getting close to time for Santa Claus to arrive.”  
  
Kurapika, who mostly had a clear idea who Santa Claus was by now even if he still had no idea why he was so important to Christmas, scoffed at this. “But the character of Santa is supposed to watch the children all year,” he said expertly. “Acting good at the last minute won’t help.”  
  
“I know,” said Basho, “but kids—and adults, too, most of the time—just think like that. Imagine trying to threaten a kid by telling them Santa’s going to leave him coal in his stocking in July.”  
  
“Going by your tone, I’m assuming it’d be ridiculous and wouldn’t work,” said Kurapika. Basho nodded and toasted him with a freshly opened beer.  
  
“Yep. July’s too damn far away from Christmas. Santa’s only real in December.”  
  
Kurapika didn’t know many children, and he wasn’t sure how a belief in Santa Claus could influence someone who was already Neon’s age to be more considerate of their security team. “Neon can’t possibly believe in Santa now,” he said. “That’s for little kids.”  
  
“Are you sure? Her father still has the maids put ‘From Santa’ on all her presents,” said Basho. Kurapika took him seriously for a moment and was on the verge of arguing that this whole conversation had started precisely _because_ Neon knew it wasn’t Santa who brought her gifts and had wanted to thank Basho specifically for retrieving the Sidi Clan’s knuckle for her. Basho notice him puffing up in preparation and laughed at him for it. Kurapika deflated with a short sigh of annoyance, and said nothing.  
  
“No, you’re right, you’re right, she doesn’t,” said Basho. “But this time of year everyone starts getting really nice to each other, right? It’s what they call the holiday spirit. It’s infectious.”  
  
“So, Neon’s got the holiday spirit?”  
  
Basho shrugged. “That, or like I said before, the thing with Eliza really got to her, and now she’s sincerely trying to be more mindful of the people around her. We won’t know which it is until late January.”  
  
“Maybe it’s both?” suggested Kurapika. Over his shoulder, the television atop the dresser came to life.  
  
“I mean, honestly, that’s probably the case,” said Basho. He began flipping channels and Kurapika got the hint to either leave soon, or take a beer and watch tv. Kurapika didn’t have time for tv, so, he stood to leave with an excuse about a bit of work he had left to do before it got too late.  
  
“Oh hey,” called Basho as Kurapika reached the door. “If Neon asks, tell her she’s welcome. You don’t have to tell her that finding a collector’s quality Sidi Clan knuckle is way more fun than sitting around here, even though that’s true. Just tell her it was no trouble, and that she can send me out to go hunt that sort of stuff down for her any time. I’m a Hunter, you know? That’s right up my alley.”  
  
“Good point,” said Kurapika. “I’ve been looking at a few perspective acquisitions myself, so, I’ll see what we can do, what help I’ll need. You definitely won’t be sitting around here doing nothing in the upcoming year.”  
  
“Awesome,” said Basho. He saluted Kurapika with the beer as Kurapika reached for the door handle. “Can’t wait.” 


	7. Christmas Cookies

Kurapika and Leorio hadn’t exactly hurried to put up the decorations in the apartment after buying them. More measurements needed to be made to ensure each item was properly utilized, and Leorio left that to Kurapika while he attended the final lectures of the year and worked in the school library. The only thing they had standing so far was the tree, albeit without a single ornament hanging from its branches. Leorio joked they were going for a more natural Christmas look and should buy five more trees just like it to turn the apartment into a forest. When Alluka arrived, they’d open all the windows, cover the entire floor with ice, and then it’d feel just like they were sitting outside, freezing, like shepherds.    
  
This afternoon when Leorio returned, however, he found Kurapika waiting expectantly for him with all the boxes of lights and tinsel carefully opened and their the contents draped over the couch so they wouldn’t tangle.    
  
“I’ve labeled and marked where everything should go with colored masking tape,” said Kurapika. Leorio glanced up and for the first time noticed the small, even spots of tape along the crown molding. “I need you to start putting up the high stuff, since I had to return the ladder to your building’s caretaker before three.”   
  
Leorio set his book bag down near the door and stepped into the main space of the living room, careful not to tread on any trailing garlands.   
  
“The red tape corresponds to the red tinsel,” Kurapika continued. “If you see it with white tape alongside, it means you have to add the corresponding addition, which in this case, with white, is lights. But, it can also be an alternate color of tinsel that I’ve already looped together loosely, such as this one here. It’s red and gold, and the tape representing it is red and yellow. Are you following?”   
  
“Yes,” said Leorio with resolve.   
  
“Good. The rest of the instructions won’t be too long.”   
  
Leorio didn’t say another word, but obediently sat through everything Kurapika had to tell him about how the entire operation had been organized. When Kurapika finished, Leorio went to take up the first assembled garland in the order Kurapika wanted him to begin hanging things up.   
  
“Ask any questions you want as you work,” said Kurapika. “I know it’s a lot. This took me two days to organize, so I don’t expect you to remember every little detail, okay?”   
  
“It’s alright,” grunted Leorio around a roll of tape between his lips. “I’ve got it.”   
  
While Leorio put up the decorations, Kurapika went to the partially open kitchen. He explained as he pulled various colored batches of dough from the fridge that it would be good to have some fun activity prepared for Alluka, like making cookies for Santa, or else she might get bored sitting around for the whole week she’d be visiting. To make sure the recipe was foolproof, Kurapika was testing out several different variations to see which were the best. Afterwards, he expected Leorio to help him test and eat them all, even if the two of them got sick of cookies by the time they were finished.    
  
“I’m not sure if we need to make something chocolatey for Killua,” said Kurapika as he considered the various cookie doughs. “It’s a common holiday sweet, but not many of the Christmas cookies I’ve found seem to have much chocolate in them. In any case, I haven’t made anything with chocolate in it here. What do you think?”   
  
“I think you just need to stock up on chocolate sweets,” said Leorio, who was currently draped in more tinsel than he’d hung up so far. “There’s those huge chocolate bars they sell around this time of year. He’ll inhale that kind of stuff. There’s holiday-themed choco-robos, too.”   
  
“Good point. I’ll buy that later, then. We can put that in the stockings.”   
  
“If Killua doesn’t sniff our chocolate stash out like bloodhound the second he arrives and eat it all within the first day.”   
  
“He’ll hold back if we tell him it’s for his sister.”   
  
“Yeah,” said Leorio. “For that, he’ll leave her one mini chocolate Santa.”   
  
Leorio continued to hang tinsel and lights in the living room as Kurapika, in the kitchen, swept trays of cookies into and out of the oven. Sporadic bursts of conversation between them mostly fell on matters of further planning, such as weighing the pros and cons of decorating the tree now or waiting for everyone else to arrive and decorating it together. Leorio ended up finishing his his job before Kurapika was even halfway through the cookies, since hanging tinsel and lights wasn’t constrained to precise baking times.   
  
“How do you make such tiny batches?” ask Leorio. Three representatives of each cookie variety, uncannily precise and identical in every way, took up their own quadrants along the edges of the festive tray Kurapika had bought the day before. “It’s always like one egg for twenty cookies or something. I hate baking them because it’s always way too much to eat.”   
  
“I mixed the total weight of eggs for all the recipes together and then divided it between the different doughs,” said Kurapika simply. “It’s very imprecise to just add an egg to something. Measuring by weight is much more consistent.”   
  
“I didn’t realize you were such a professional about cookies,” said Leorio. He picked up two seemingly identical cookies and studied them all around, as though looking for some sort of imperfection that might disqualify one over the other. “I mean, why am I surprised?” he asked, giving up and setting the two cookies back down. “You marked the walls for the decorations precisely and sketched a floor plan of my entire apartment practically to scale. Cookies must be easy. They’ve already got recipes.”   
  
“Correct,” said Kurapika. “They’re much easier than decorating the apartment, since I’m not really inventing a cookie recipe. I’m just following the existing recipes very closely.”   
  
“And where are those recipes?” asked Leorio. “Have you got a master list or something? Knowing you, you’ve probably written up a whole rubric the size of a book for me to grade these on.”   
  
“It’s only a very basic rubric…” said Kurapika, removing the plastic kitchen gloves he was wearing and taking up a thin bundle of papers from the pile of books and loose pages on the far counter. He handed the bundle over to Leorio, who was already grinning, satisfied he’d been right.   
  
“I guess I’m not having dinner,” said Leorio. “It’s cookies from now until midnight.”   
  
“Then, you should get started.”   
  
Leorio took the tray with first batches of cookies with him to the table along with his grading sheets. With exaggerated care, he broke one of each cookie in half and scrutinized them as hard as before, but still without seeing anything. Kurapika told him to stop kidding around. He slipped another tray into the oven and set the timer. Then, he came over to sit across the table.   
  
“It’s only three more batches left to bake after this, so I’ll start trying them out, too. We’ll do the first trials without any drinks but water. The next we’ll incorporate tea and milk. The third cookie of each set we’ll save until tomorrow to see how they might change over time.”   
  
Leorio nodded along, mimicking the seriousness of Kurapika’s expression, though the bemused look in his eyes gave him away. Kurapika got up to grab the water he'd forgot, and the glasses set down between them. He took one half of each cookie Leorio had already broken, and began to try them in order following his own copy of the grading sheet.   
  
“You can’t just classify them all as ‘sweet’ and ‘not that sweet’,” said Kurapika in exasperation after looking over to the sheets Leorio had already filled out.   
  
“Look. I also put if they were crumbly or soft,” said Leorio, pointing with the end of his pen. “Also, after that last cookie, I’ve added ‘soft sandy crunchy’ or ‘gritty sandy crunchy’. It’s a process that builds on itself. I learn as I go.”   
  
Kurapika leaned forward to look at the sheet Leorio was still filling in and had to agree the notes were sort of getting progressively more detailed. More than anything else, Leorio had a special sensitivity to the textural nuances, it seemed. He explained this to Kurapika as being a consequence of the fact that he disliked soft cookies. He made sure to clarify that most children seriously loved soft cookies, before going on on to speculate that perhaps having two adults judge which variety of cookie would be most appealing to an adolescent palate wasn’t going to be the best assessment available.   
  
“I’ve considered that,” admitted Kurapika. “I figured if we couldn’t decided, we’d just make sugar cookies and gingerbread, since at least those can be decorated, even if they aren’t especially tasty.”   
  
“Gingerbread?” asked Leorio, intrigued. “What they make the little people out of?”   
  
“Yeah. You can make houses out of it, too.”   
  
“And it's edible?”   
  
“Not if you leave it out for weeks, but yeah. Haven’t you ever tried it?”   
  
“No. I haven’t. I’ve just seen them in decorations.”   
  
Kurapika sighed. “Is this like the candy canes?” he asked. “You never had them, but you still put them in all your Christmas motifs? How much of this holiday is actually yours, and how much of it have you just adopted from everyone else in the world?”   
  
“I dunno,” said Leorio. He popped the last quarter of his current cookie into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “We might have a sort of gingerbread,” he said after a moment. “We have spice cookies with raisins in them, but those are pretty much for every holiday. They’re not especially fancy, but they’ve got basic ingredients everyone has, so, everyone makes them.”   
  
“Oh? Then maybe we should make those.”   
  
“Nah. Kids won’t like them. Kids hate raisins.”   
  
“That can’t be true, otherwise a cookie with raisins wouldn’t be so popular in your country.”   
  
“Yeah, but our kids are used to raisins. Almost all of our sweets have them, so our kids don’t really have a choice. People will take walnuts out of a recipe if you’re allergic, but if you tell them to take out the raisins, or you refuse to take a cookie from the tray because you don’t like raisins, they’re going to look at you like you’re a grown-up brat.”   
  
Kurapika nibbled on the cookie in his hand and decided he didn’t like it, but didn’t hurry to write down why. “That makes sense,” he said to Leorio after the pause. “Even if you don’t like raisins, you still have to be polite and take the cookie, so long as it’s not going to kill you.”   
  
“Well, but some assholes will look at you like you’re a brat even if the cookie _is_ going to kill you and you turn it down. Like, if it’s the versions with walnuts in it. Some people will take that personally no matter what.”   
  
“Some people are just like that.”   
  
“Yeah, but then they go tell the rest of the block that they don’t like you because you're stuck-up, and now half the people in your neighborhood think you’re kind of a jerk,” said Leorio. He sighed as he took up his pen and pulled the grading sheet nearer. “Anyway,” he said, motioning to the rest of the list, “there’s only a few cookies left after this, right? Then, it’s the milk and hot beverages round. The ultimate test.”   
  
"Yes," said kurapika before shooting up from his seat just as the alarm for the batch in the oven went off. He spun around in confusion for a second looking for where he'd put the oven mitt. Leorio snatched it up from the table and balled up to throw at the back of his head, but Kurapika caught it mid-air on instinct and told Leorio he’d have to try a lot harder than that to hit him.   
  
“By the way,” said Leorio, coming over and standing in the kitchen doorway as Kurapika pulled the cookies from the oven and checked their color and doneness. “I haven’t added it to the calendar, but I got roped into a Christmas party on the eighteenth. It’s with friends from work, so, I couldn’t get out of it easily because they know my schedule. Also, because Kar knows you’re here, you’re invited, too. I’m deeply sorry.”   
  
Kurapika had started slipping cookies onto wire racks delicately and didn't look up. “That’s alright,” he said distractedly. “You can go. It’s okay.”   
  
“But, you’re invited, too.”   
  
Kurapika fumbled a cookie, and it nearly fell off the spatula to the ground. “No,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ll stay here. That’s okay with me.”   
  
“You’re going to abandon me and make me go by myself, then?” asked Leorio with a pout. “I’ll have to suffer alone?”   
  
“I’m sure it’s not the first holiday party you’ve been forced to attend against your will,” said Kurapika. “You can handle it. I believe in you.”   
  
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should just blow it off.”   
  
Kurapika put down the tray and began tidying up. Leorio reach over to open a cabinet so he could put away a few cleaned bowls.   
  
“None of your friends know me,” explained Kurapika to Leorio towering above him, “so I’m not really obligated….”   
  
“Kar knows you.”   
  
“Not well. And plus, I’m not really that concerned about her opinion of me.”   
  
“But what about everyone’s opinion of _me_?” asked Leorio. “That I have a jerk friend who won’t attend a party and would rather just sit around alone in my apartment instead? It’s kinda weird if you’re here all the way from Zhiscay, as Kar has already gone and told everyone apparently, and you want to spend every second in this apartment by yourself.”   
  
Kurapika tapped the cooling cookies a few times to see how they were setting up. It wasn't a typical check he made on cookies. Leorio leaned heavily against the wall and waited for Kurapika to stop wasting time.    
  
“Kurapika,” he said sternly. “I’m serious. Please go.”   
  
“But why?”   
  
“I dunno,” said Leorio with a shrug. “Maybe it’ll be a learning experience? How many Christmas parties have you even been to before? Not many, right?”   
  
“Thirty-seven.”   
  
Leorio didn’t seem to believe this number, both that it was so high, and that Kurapika knew it exactly. “What? But you don’t even celebrate this holiday?”   
  
“My friends and business associates do,” said Kurapika. “It’s a very long season of parties and gifts and showing respect for the culture of where I live and work, even if I don’t believe in it myself. For that reason, I’ve attended many parties.”   
  
“Okay, fine. But have you ever been to a party that wasn’t a business obligation, but rather, something more casual between friends and stuff?”   
  
Kurapika hesitated. The oven was off, the dishes put away, and the cookies cool enough to withstand his useless tapping. He sighed as he met Leorio’s gaze.   
  
“…No,” he said. “I guess I haven’t.”   
  
“So, then, go to this one.”   
  
“Are you sure it’s not going to be a huge waste of time?”   
  
“It’s absolutely going to be a huge waste of time. But, it’s time we waste together.”   
  
“That’s not at all appealing.”   
  
“Let this be your Christmas gift to me, then.”   
  
“I don’t think I’m obligated to get you a gift at all if you don’t even believe in this holiday…” objected Kurapika. Leorio rolled his eyes at him.   
  
“Please, Kurapika. It’s Christmas.”   
  
“And so? What’s that supposed to mean?”   
  
“It means don’t be a selfish ass and just go to the boring holiday party with your buddy Leorio.”   
  
Kurapika straightened the oven mitt hanging from a lower cabinet and waved for Leorio to get out of the doorway. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go. Now, we have I don’t remember how many more cookies to eat. I want to finish this cookie stuff today, and then I never want to see another cookie until Christmas. Okay?”   
  
“Not likely,” said Leorio, catching up to sit back down at the table with Kurapika. “But I can’t lie. I feel exactly the same way.”


	8. The Christmas Cat

“Is this holiday really considered a romantic one?” asked Kurapika incredulously under his breath to Senritsu, certain she’d catch every word. “I thought the love they talk about was more of general kind, for everyone.”   
  
“But it’s a winter holiday,” said Senritsu gentle up to him. “You spend more time indoors, so, you can really get to know someone if they’re around all the time. Also, there’s the family aspect. A love story is the start of a family, even if the family’s just two people and a cat.”    
  
Automatically, Kurapika’s eyes fell on the cat in the carrying cage between them. As though sensing his gaze, the cat looked up and let out a short, inquiring meow. Kurapika shook his head and resumed his watch over the surrounding area. The cat returned to napping peacefully.   
  
It turned out that, even after enduring the arduous process of preparing for and passing the Hunter Exam, working one’s way up the mafia clan hierarchy to become a sub boss, and then single-handedly creating one of the most trusted and profitable security companies on the continent, a person could still end up standing in the middle of a cheesy, Christmas themed movie set in early August, guarding a high profile cat actor during the shooting of the upcoming holiday film, “The Christmas Cat”, sure to be a hit with young and old alike the world over. Though the work was tiresome, Kurapika had no regrets about accepting the contract. Guarding the world’s eminent celebrity cat, Kit-Cat, put him in contact with the cat’s owner, who’s lawyer brother-in-law was a known collector of certain rare items found only in the underground market for human body parts. As a matter of fact, Kurapika’s connection to Neon Nostrade was what had got his company the contract in the first place. He couldn’t waste the opportunity to establish a new contact with someone else within the flesh collecting community now, especially when that person was known to have, at one point at least, possessed a pair of the Kurta Clan’s Scarlet Eyes.   
  
“So,” said Kurapika to Senritsu after a long moment of reflection over what she’d told him about love during the holidays, “what you’re saying is that, instead of going out to meet up with friends during winter, some people need an especially invested friend who they’re dating, preferably someone nearby who they can just call up and then sit around the house with, immobile.”   
  
“Basically, yes. Tis the season and all that.”   
  
Kurapika crossed his arms and then uncrossed them just as quickly after realizing it didn't cut the most professional profile. “Okay,” he said, “but what does that have to do with Christmas? How are they making entire movies like this about Christmas romances for what’s essentially just a cold weather phenomenon?”   
  
Senritsu smiled. “Love stories make people happy,” she said simply. “Everyone wants to be happy during the holidays. It’s contagious, and their hearts become warm and very pleasant to listen to.”   
  
At that moment, Kit-Cat stuck a perfect heart shaped nose through the metal bars of the carrier and let out a rolling chirp. Kurapika stepped back a little to look inside the carrier, and the cat pressed a beseeching paw above the locked door latch.   
  
“Is it trying to ask to be let out?” Kurapika asked Senritsu from the corner of his mouth. “Where’s the animal handler?”   
  
“He’s still in the bathroom.”   
  
“But cats aren’t supposed to be let out like dogs, right? They run off?” asked Kurapika. He’d never owned a cat or spent much time with any that weren’t living on the street. The procedure of dealing with a cat that didn’t belong to him, especially a cat that cost so much money, didn’t come naturally. Senritsu was no expert either and shrugged.   
  
“It can’t be humane to just leave it in here forever,” said Kurapika. “What if it has a legitimate reason to want out of there?”   
  
“The handler should be back in a minute,” offered Senritsu optimistically.   
  
“It’s been over ten minutes already. He must be ill.”   
  
“Don’t dare ask me to check. Bowel movements are generally something I try to block out.”   
  
Kurapika froze completely as the realization that came with Senritsu’s comment dawned on him far too abruptly. Senritsu sighed.   
  
“Half the time I bring you something to eat between shifts, it’s not because I’m being especially thoughtful or nurturing. Your stomach just bothers me when you’re letting yourself go hungry.”   
  
Kurapika shifted uneasily and looked down as his stomach. “Thanks,” he said, not sure he had to be thankful for this. It was hard to tell how all these new but obvious realizations about Senritsu’s hearing were making him feel.   
  
A half hour later, the animal handler returned and filming resumed on schedule. Kit-Cat, the amazing acting cat, emerged from its carrier and was taken to the set, where Kurapika and Senrtisu were forced to stand guard from a distance. As he watched the cat take its starting position, Kurapika was impressed by all the perfectly heart-shaped markings covering its body. The look was truly remarkable. If there were ever a cat born to play a role in this and every romantic tale with a cat gimmick for the next decade, it would be Kit-Cat. After their first day guarding the cat, Kurapika had wondered why the cat hadn’t been named something more appropriate. Weren’t cats born with their markings? Wouldn’t it have been obvious that this cat in particular was covered in hearts?   
  
Kurapika’s question had been answered indirectly after he and Senritsu had met the cat’s owner. As the man explained, he’d always named all his cats Kit-Cat since he was a child. His mother had told him he couldn’t name them kitten, because they would grow up into cats, so he named them a mix of both cat and kitten: Kit-Cat. Senritsu and Kurapika had exchanged a subtle glance behind the man’s back after this after he’d stepped out to bring them Kit-Cat’s favorite toy. When they’d departed later, Kurapika had commented that, while he admired the man’s steadfast dedication to a naming convention he’d decided on as a child, the cat was literally covered in hearts.   
  
The entire experience of being a cat bodyguard defied convention in other ways than naming conventions. Kurapika and Senritsu had initially assumed it’d be like guarding a baby or a small child. When guarding a baby, for example, although the baby was their charge, matters pertaining to the care and wellbeing of the baby would remain in the hands of parents or nannies. Guarding Kit-Cat had turned out notably different from this. For one, they were left completely alone with the cat much more often than Kurapika was comfortable with. They’d even been asked to take it on walks without a single handler or crew member accompanying them. After a while, the owner and animal handlers’ laissez-faire approach to the cat’s well-being had caused Kurapika to grow somewhat paranoid. Perhaps they’d hired him to have a scapegoat when the cat eventually turned up murdered, poisoned in its own carrier or shot with a pellet gun while out for a walk. Just in case, Kurapika maintained ceaseless vigilance over the cat and the surrounding area, putting in more effort for this cat than he’d ever expended for any human client. Senritsu told him to take it easy, not to overthink so much, but Kurapika didn’t know how.   
  
“Last day of re-shoots, and no incidents whatsoever,” said Senritsu proudly as they stood alongside the carrier for the last time while Kit-Cat meowed curiously between them. “You were worried for nothing. It’s turned out to be a pretty straightforward job, if unconventional.”   
  
“There’s still a whole day of shooting left,” Kurapika reminded her. “They could’ve be luring us into a false sense of security all this time.”   
  
“Maybe, but it’s pretty quiet around here,” said Senritsu. “I mean figuratively. Literally, it’s almost deafening with all these people and equipment.”   
  
“Just keep an eye and an ear out a little longer,” said Kurapika. “We’re not done with the contract until the filming’s wrapped up.”   
  
Despite Kurapika’s reservations, the routine of the day played out as it had every other, though with a lighter atmosphere since the bulk of the filming work had been finished. The lead actors greeted him and Senritsu warmly, making the same tired jokes about Kit-Cat being an impossible diva and how Kurapika and Senritsu should be happy when shooting ended. The lead actress, and not the cat’s owners or handlers, had been the one to tell Senritsu about the letter and phone calls threatening Kit-Cat’s life before bodyguards had been hired. Kurapika had marked this down in his mind as highly suspicious. Senritsu had as well, though she was optimistic it wasn’t any kind of conspiracy. If she and Kurapika were guarding a cat, some sort of threat of danger had to have occured, and anyway, in their briefing for the assignment, the owner had mentioned receiving threats. He just hadn’t gone into much detail. Perhaps he hadn’t found the details important.   
  
Just because it was the last day didn't mean there was time to relax. Not for the first time, Kurapika skipped lunch, despite the fact that he was now aware it was something Senritsu found annoying. He didn’t want to let Kit-Cat out of his sight for a second, and wouldn’t risk someone trying to undermine his efforts through the catering. Senritsu offered to buy him something off set, but he told her it wasn’t necessary. If she left, it might invite some sort of an opportunity to strike.   
  
“Are you sure you love me, Elfina?” demanded the male protagonist, a shoemaker’s elf who’d found his true calling in toy making. He stood surrounded by artificial snowdrifts as more heavy white flakes fluttered and danced like petals all around. “Or, will you get bored when winter’s over, when this magical Winter Wonderland has ended, and go back to the North Pole to build toys with all the other elves who’ll never appreciate you or your work like I do?”   
  
“I’ll always love Christmas, Gregorio, and that will never change,” confessed Elfina. Kit-Cat lay next to her, alert and waiting impatiently for the next cue. “But, Romeow has helped me see that there’s room in my heart to love you, too. I want to build toys with you, together in a little shop of our own, for this year and every Christmas season to come, forever.”   
  
“Don’t hurt me again. Not on Christmas.”   
  
“I’ll never hurt you again. Not if it’s Christmas, or New Years, or Easter Sunday.”   
  
“I just don’t know, Elfina,” said Gregorio. He faced away from her dramatically, looking off into the snow covered hills with the shine of tears in his eyes. “Can I trust you after I watched you fly off on that reindeer, telling me that your obligation to Christmas came before me? That it always would?”   
  
Senritsu, meanwhile, was trying to silently convince Kurapika to please sit down. He’d already been asked to stop pacing by the crew, since it was distracting the performers. Now, he was standing perfectly still while Senritsu had accepted a chair and taken a seat beside him. His eyes never stopped traveling up and around the set, then back to the cat, waiting for danger to strike with the same taunt anticipation that Kit-Cat waited for a cue.   
  
“What do you think Romeow. Am I crazy, am I fool, or has Elfina really changed?”   
  
In this subsequent outdoor scene, Gregorio and the cat were sitting alone on a bench, discussing the decision Gregorio needed to make to open his heart and trust Elfina once more. On Kit-Cat, or Romeow’s part, opinions and suggestions were expressed entirely through a sequence of emphatic meows.   
  
“Meow,” answered Romeow, meaningfully, somehow.   
  
“I know it’s Christmas. But, could her feeling for Christmas be getting mixed up all over again with her feelings for me? I don’t want to lose her to bright lights and the excitement of Santa’s Workshop, Romeow. Not like that. Not again.”   
  
“Meow,” said Romeow, exactly the same as before.   
  
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” moaned Gregorio. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”   
  
“Meow.”   
  
“Argh, no! I refuse! I'd’ rather go and—oh shit, fuck this damn suit, not again.”    
  
At this moment in the scene, Gregorio had made to stand, but found himself inhibited from performing a full, energetic outburst by the long tails of his coat. Each one ended in a cluster of festive jingle-bells, and these bells, like bunches of metal grapes sliding off a kitchen counter, slipped and caught between bench’s wooden slats, anchoring the actor in place. Promptly, Gregorio was forced to sit back down, hard. Kit-Cat sprang away in alarm, but was held in place by a tether around its neck.   
  
“I’m caught again, goddamnit,” grumbled the actor, trying to turn to see where he’d got stuck.   
  
“Sit still, sit still, Mirka will get you out,” said the director, motioning a stagehand forward to free the man. “Let’s do that again. Try not to sit so far back, okay? If you move too much the bells fall between the seat and the back of the bench. We’ve been over this. It’s totally preventable.”   
  
“This should’ve been fixed ages ago,” the actor countered as he leaned back to help the stagehand free his coattails. “It's ridiculous. What kind of working conditions are these?”   
  
“C’mon, it’s the last take. Let’s just try to get through this, okay? Just don’t sit back. That’s all. Got it?”   
  
The actor grumbled that yes, yeah, whatever, he got it. Once he was freed, he went to take his starting position at the edge of the set and re-enter the scene. Kit-Cat meowed at him curiously, and without thinking he told the cat to wait, that they were starting from the top.   
  
“Kurapika, if this is anything like last time they shot this scene, they’re going to have to reshoot at least fifteen more times. Please, take a seat,” said Senritsu. “Bring a chair over before we have to be quiet again.”   
  
“I’m totally okay like this,” said Kurapika. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and clasped his hands behind his back. “I’ve stood in place a whole lot longer than this while working.”   
  
“But you don’t need to,” said Senritsu. Her efforts proved futile as the scene started up again, and Kurapika remained planted where he stood.   
  
In sweet, perfect vindication of everything Kurapika had been saying for the past six weeks, something quick, violent, and unquestionably dangerous finally occurred on the seventh take of the bench sitting scene. The first sign was when Kit-Cat missed its cue to meow as Gregorio bemoaned his fate, and Kurapika, thanks to his En, was immediately aware as to why. Plummeting down, from nearly two stories up, a set of rigging had come loose. The row of graceful, animatronic reindeer that hung from it caught on lights and other rigs, slowing its descent in a shower of sparks. On stage, Kit-Kat struggled against the tether trapping it in the rigging’s path. At the same time, the actor beside him on the bench struggled to extricate himself from the jingle bells that were once more caught between the slats of the bench.   
  
“Take your damn coat off, you idiot,” snapped Kurapika to the actor as he appeared alongside him, cutting the tether holding Kit-Cat in place with a single, swift slash of a pocket knife. He collected the cat in his arms and leap away moments before the first of the animatronic reindeer made contact with the floor. Less than a second later, the whole rest of the structure caught up to it, and Gregorio, who’d only halfway freed himself far too late, was partly crushed beneath the weight of the wreckage.   
  
Pretty soon, people were screaming, the loudest among them the pinned Gregorio. Crew rushed forward to check his condition, but kept him in place as an ambulance siren sounded in the distance. Kurapika stepped away from the commotion, and nodded for Senritsu to collect Kit-Cat’s carrier. Kit-Cat, meanwhile, observed the unfurling chaos around it with an odd placidity from the certain safety of Kurapika’s arms.   
  
Fifteen minutes later, Kurapika and Senritsu were together in Kit-Cat’s trailer, waiting for the cat’s owner to return from a spa lunch date. The person who met them there, however, ended up being someone they’d never met, though Kurapika recognized him instantly.   
  
“You don’t know me, but I’m Mr. Favi. Kit-Cat is my brother-in-law’s cat. I manage the legal side of things, you know, contracts and all that. You might recognize my name as being the one on the contract you signed, although this is the first time we’ve met in person.”   
  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” lied Kurapika. He hated the man already, because he owned a pair of Kurta eyes bought new only a few years before.   
  
“I must say I’m impressed by your work,” said Mr. Favi. “Also, to be honest, a little horrified. You left a man to die to save my brother-in-law’s cat.”   
  
“I wasn’t hired to protect the actor,” said Kurapika. “There wasn’t time for both.”   
  
“I mean, well, yes, point made, Mr. Kurapika. But…” Mr. Favi sighed heavily, looking desperate. “...what the hell?” he asked. “That’s…that’s just....”   
  
“It’s what I’m here to do.”   
  
Mr. Favi nodded and yet somehow continued to shake his head in utter disbelief at the same time. This resulted in a supremely confused gesture between both extremes, managing to represent Mr. Favi's mental state perfectly.   
  
“Anyway,” continued Mr. Favi after he’d taken a moment. “I’m here to finalize your contract, pay you for your work, you know, all of that. Filming is over now, clearly, so you’ve fulfilled your obligation. There’s no doubt about that.”   
  
Kurapika still held the cat in his arms. It moved to his shoulder as he stood to look over the star of documents Mr. Favi had removed from his briefcase.   
  
“I’ll keep the cat until you hand over the last check,” said Kurapika when the man reached for Kit-Cat, and Kit-Cat didn’t jump to him. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen before everything’s finalized and the cat's safety is no longer my responsibility.”   
  
“Certainly,” agreed Mr. Favi, though he seemed oddly crestfallen at the news. “I trust you completely with the safety of that cat, that’s for certain.”   
  
Only after the final legal matters had been wrapped up did Senritsu open the cat carrier, and Kurapika ordered Kit-Cat inside. Obediently, Kit-Cat leapt into it. Senritsu closed the door and set the carrier on the desk in front of Mr. Favi, inviting him kindly to take it.   
  
“Wait,” called Mr. Favi, as Kurapika and Senritsu turned to leave the trailer. “Take a seat. I want to talk about something else.”   
  
Kurapika clenched a fist and felt the chains over his right hand press hard and cold against his skin. He spun back around cooly and sat down once more.   
  
“To be honest,” said Mr. Favi, glancing to the side anxiously, “my brother-in-law and I weren’t really expecting you to actually choose the cat over the human being. But, apparently we severely underestimated your…uh... _literalness_ in how you interpreted your assignment. I’m not really sure how else to put it.”   
  
“You mean you both planned this?” asked Kurapika. “You sabotaged the set yourselves and endangered all those people’s lives?” He didn’t sound or look surprised as Mr. Favi nodded in affirmation to every question. Senritsu sighed at this further confirmation that Kurapika’s instinct about the job had been right all along.   
  
“We were trying to kill the cat, not maim the actor,” Mr. Favi clarified. “Any normal person would’ve chosen to…” he hesitated as he caught Kurapika’s eye, “…well, I guess that’s beside the point. Like I said, we judged wrong here.”   
  
“Evidently,” said Kurapika. He leaned forward with a tired slump of the shoulders, making it clear that Mr. Favi was wasting his time. “But anyway, besides ruining your plan, I don’t see what all that has to do with me,” he said. “Why are we talking about this? What makes you think this failed plan of yours concerns me in the slightest? I could turn you in for what happened to the actor. I’m under no obligation to keep it a secret for you.”   
  
“But, you work for the mafia, though, right? The Nostrades?” asked Mr. Favi hopefully. “Well, I know a lot of people in the mafia, too. I’ve probably pissed a lot of them off by failing to kill this cat. It’s insured for a fortune, you see. I arranged all this to collect on the policy, but now I can’t deliver. I promised people that money, and now I don’t have it.”   
  
Kurapika could sense the change in Senritsu’s Nen as both of them raised their guard.   
  
“That’s not my problem,” said Kurapika slowly, menacingly. “And if you make it my problem, I'll make you regret it.”   
  
“No, no, I’m fair, I get it, we should’ve clued you in on what was happening, offered you a cut. We just didn’t consider the, uh...every possible avenue.”   
  
“No, you did not.”   
  
“But hey, that’s okay, because now I want to make you another offer, another contract to work for me.”   
  
“If it’s for the cat again, I don’t accept it,” said Kurapika. “I won’t take that hit to my reputation. I’m building a brand, Mr. Favi. I’m not playing around.”   
  
“I completely understand,” Mr. Favi assured him. Kurapika pursed his lips and waited. “I won’t be asking you to look after the cat again. The cat thing is over. What I’m interested in now is hiring you to protect something else. More specifically, _someone_ else. To be exact, _me_.”    
  
Only Senritsu could hear it as gradually, Kurapika’s heart rate began to pick up speed.   
  
“Like I said,” explained Mr. Favi with a tired sigh, “I’ve pissed a lot of people off by not killing this cat. But, from what I can see, you’re an exceptional option to protect me from any of those people who may come after me. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking trying to deceive you earlier. From what I know now, it’s clear the only reason Neon Nostrade could’ve possibly have survived the attacks on the mafia by the Phantom Troupe was a result of the exceptional ability of you and your team protecting her. It was wrong to assume your recent appearance and lack of a reputation meant you’d just got lucky there. So, please, accept another contract to guard me instead, at least for the next few months. I’m really a sitting duck here.”   
  
“Is this another trick?” asked Kurapika, looking Mr. Favi hard in the eye.   
  
“No.”   
  
Kurapika turned to Senritsu. She nodded without a word.   
  
“Then, I look forward to working with you,” said Kurapika, extending a hand. A light but ominous clink rang out at the movement of his chains sliding against each other. “I believe this relationship will benefit us both tremendously.”   
  
“Keep me alive, and I promise you, it will,” said Mr. Favi with a sigh of relief. “I’ll make sure of it.”   



	9. Cheer

From the moment he’d arrived, Kurapika had kept as close to the wall as he could. He’d promised Leorio he’d come to the party, yes, but he hadn’t promised to be sociable. In fact, to even further reduce his sociability, he’d kept his hat, scarf, and new, extra puffy winter coat on. When Leorio demanded to know why Kurapika was attending the party looking like a mascot for tires, Kurapika said nothing, only casting him a long, baleful look, because his eyes were the only part of his body visible and capable of expressing emotion.

“You’re going to die of heatstroke in there, Kurapika,” said Leorio as they stood together in a corner near the entry hall, and Kurapika turned down for a third time, through clumsy gyrations of his thickly padded arms, the host’s offer to take his coat for him. Leorio had wretch off the earmuffs and gloves on his own, but the knotted scarf and hat that tied under Kurapika’s chin were impossible to get at before Kurapika blocked him.

“You look stupid. You look like a snowman,” said Leorio. “You’re lucky no-one brought hot chocolate, or else I’d dunk you in it head first, because you look like a marshmallow.”

Kurapika shrugged, indifferent to Leorio's comments, but Leorio had no idea. Absolutely no part of the shrug was conveyed through the padding of Kurapika’s oversized coat.

“Why are you doing this? What the hell could you possibly be getting out of this?”

Kurapika lifted his arms a little, his hands flapping along with the muffled sound of unintelligible words. Leorio raised an incredulous brow and took a long sip of the drink he’d made sure to snatch up within seconds of arriving alongside Kurapika in all his padded, wintery glory.

“Actually, you know what, this might be an improvement,” said Leorio. “At least it’s shut you up.”

As much as his coat would let him, Kurapika began tugging hard at the scarf covering his mouth. It took over a minute before he’d loosened it enough to speak.

“I was a bit ambitious tying this,” said Kurapika, panting for breath. “It was getting hard to breath in here.”

“Put it back on,” said Leorio. Kurapika punched him in the arm.

“Look,” said Kurapika in a conspiring tone, almost a whisper. “I already told you my strategy. If I’m too normal in how I act, we’ll be stuck here all night because your friends will want to meet me. But, if I make everyone uncomfortable instead, then they’ll all be hoping and praying we leave early. You probably won’t be able to leave this party until three in the morning otherwise. You know too many people, and you’re very bad finding excuses to leave.”

“Yeah, but, well, when you told me the plan, I sort of thought you were just going to be, you know, an awkward drunk in a Santa suit or something annoying like that. Not the roly-poly of Ghost of Christmas Present.”

“I couldn’t find anything Santa-style that was my size this late in the holiday season.”

“So instead you made your size Santa-esque.”

Kurapika sighed. “Listen, I’m pulling a lot of weight here for us, Leorio. This is the strength of my resolve.”

“It only feels like a lot of weight because that coat adds five hundred pounds, Kurapika.”

It was hard to get a lot of effective momentum behind a punch, so this time, Kurapika bent his knees and barreled into Leorio with all of his supposed five hundred pounds. He successfully knocked the unsuspecting Leorio to one knee, forcing him to spill his drink on himself.

“Okay, nope, this is over,” said Leorio. Kurapika, his current maximum puffiness achieved at the expense of his agility, couldn’t scuffle away in time before Leorio was behind him and lifting him by his armpits. He carried Kurapika kicking back into the entry hall, and once they were alone, proceeded the help him out of the giant coat like he was a child.

“You can keep the goofy hat on, if it makes you feel better,” said Leorio. “I’m putting this coat away for you now so that you can't find it. Go get a drink or something and wait for me over by where we were standing earlier.”

Kurapika crossed his arms unhappily and told Leorio he was making a mistake, but reentered the party with him nonetheless. He trudged off to the corner, but there was a man he didn’t know wiping the floor where Leorio had spilled his drink. He warned Kurapika to be careful, since it was wet. Kurapika turned around and headed towards the table of refreshments instead. There, he found ninety-percent sweets, seven-percent dips, and three-percent foods for dipping into those dips. In a category of its own, utterly incomparable in quantity to the food, were rows upon rows of drinks and punch bowls. Hardly any seemed to be non-alcoholic.

“Are you cold?” asked a familiar voice Kurapika didn’t respond to right away. “Did you lose a bet and shave your head? Why are you wearing a hat indoors?”

Kurapika smiled briefly at Karia in greeting, but remained focused on examining the nearest punch bowl instead of being engaged in a discussion on his choice of headgear.

“You shouldn’t make bets with Leorio. He’ll ruin you,” warned Karia. “I guess he changed his mind about forcing you to dress like a marshmallow, though. It was a little ridiculous.”

Kurapika smiled politely again and took the ladle out of the punch bowl to examine how thickly the liquid inside it flowed. Whatever it was, it looked exactly like unset vanilla pudding.

“They couldn’t find plastic eggnog glasses this year, so you have to drink it from a normal cup,” explained Karia, taking Kurapika’s silent inspection of what looked like a bowl of cream as uncertainty over how to serve it. She stepped away, and in a second reappeared with a cup. She shows it to him, telling him regretfully that it was really the best they had. Kurapika thanked her, being left with no option but to accept as she poured him a glass.

“How’s the eggnog?” asked Leorio, showing up in time to watch Kurapika take another slow, tentative sip of his drink. Kurapika had returned to the corner after the man cleaning up had gone. He’d brought the the glass of eggnog he’d felt compelled to take from Karia with him.

“This tastes like a mistake,” said Kurapika quietly as he lowered the glass. “Like something went wrong.”

“There are more pleasant ways to get drunk than eggnog,” agreed Leorio. “It’s pretty awful. But it’s gotten popular.”

“No, it’s not so bad,” said Kurapika. “I mean it tastes like a batter for another type of desert that didn’t set up right, so now you have to drink it with rum.”

“Don’t drink so much of it that you throw up. That won’t be pleasant. It’ll definitely taste like a mistake then.”

The drink was too rich, and after a few sips, Kurapika knew he wouldn’t finish the glass. With zero attempts at discretion, he left and poured it out into the kitchen sink. While he was gone, Leorio was pulled into a conversation with someone Kurapika didn’t feel like meeting. Left on his own, Kurapika unthinkingly fell into the party routine he used most at work: walking around stoically with a drink in his hand like he had someplace he was going.

In this manner Kurapika explored the furthest reaches of, though not the house itself, at least all the rooms being used for the party. Held loosely in his left hand was yet another foreign drink with the flavor of hot syrup and spices. Being warm made it a little better than the eggnog, and being sweet made it easier to drink that the boozier, supposedly more masculine, cocktails he typically forced himself to endure at casino openings and the handful of social functions he’d attended as a representative of the Nostrade family. He walked casually, easily, as he roamed the house, as though he knew the it, the guests, and perhaps even what the true meaning of Christmas itself might actually be. It was all a charade, however. Kurapika knew none of those things.

Upstairs he ran into Karia again. He was more outgoing this time, since he’d drunk some since he’d last seen her. Though he wasn’t sure why, he admitted to her that he actually didn’t even celebrate Christmas. At first she assumed he meant it like Leorio, that it was by choice. She was quick to agree the holiday was too commercial, but otherwise she considered it harmless. Live and let live and all of that. Kurapika corrected her haughtily and explained that, actually, no, where he was from, Christmas didn’t even exist. Leorio was afraid of empty sentimentality and people being guilted into overspending and fulfilling unnecessary social obligations that would cause them acute mental distress for months to come. Kurapika, on the other hand, was afraid of nothing. It was only some festival after all.

“You’re Leorio’s friend?” asked someone Kurapika didn’t know, appearing in the middle of the conversation huddle he'd formed with Karia. Kurapika had faintly perceived this person edging closer and closer within his En circle every time he’d mentioned Leorio’s name. At last, they’d taken the plunge and spoken up.

“Yes, he’s my friend,” said Kurapika. “He always calls me.”

The someone nodded. “He always calls you what?”

Kurapika didn't follow. “He calls me on the phone?" He frowned. "All the time. Constantly. It can be frustrating.”

The someone turned bright red and cringed openly with embarrassment. Kurapika barely noticed. The sluggishness of his thoughts was starting to suggest a grim prognosis of mild to moderate drunkeness, which seemed like it should've been impossible. He’d only been at the party for half an hour. He’d hardly touched his drink.

Never mind. On second glance, his glass was empty.

“Oh no,” he whispered softly into it.

Also, according to his watch, he’d been at the party for over an hour.

“Shit.”

“Sorry? Is something wrong?” asked Karia.

Kurapika wisely chose not to relay to her a full and accurate summation of the situation as it currently stood. He didn’t enjoy being drunk, no matter how many times Leorio had told him how relaxing it was at times let go of a little control with a light drink. Despite what Leorio assumed, Kurapika knew exactly what drinking felt like and what the effects were. He’d had to train himself to endure low amounts of strong alcohol for work. His dislike of the sensation, therefore, had been formed through experience, and not through some insecurity born of a fear of the unknown or the dread of losing his strict self-control for even an instant.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I remembered I still haven’t bought a present for, uh...” he scrambled for a name, which was now extremely difficult with his mind in a fog. His eyes fell on the Someone standing there, still blushing furiously, beside him. “Leorio,” Kurapika concluded lamely. “I, uh, I guess because I’m staying with him, I haven’t found the time.”

“Tell the truth,” said Karia. Kurapika froze. “You didn’t find the time, or you just forgot? You’ve had plenty of time. That guy’s never home.”

“Ha. You got me,” said Kurapika, hiding his relief in a single syllable of dull laughter. “I forgot. See, I just couldn’t think where to hide it, and so instead of working out a solution to the problem, I just kept putting it off instead.”

“That’s terrible,” said the Someone. “What if he got you something and you got him nothing?”

“It’s probably not the end of the world. Kurapika's still new to this whole Christmas thing,” said Karia to the Someone. “Leorio will understand. I mean this is one of the reasons he doesn’t like the holiday to begin with. It's like you yourself said, Kurapika. The artificial sense of obligation, being forced to go along with something just because people will feel insulted if you don’t. Reasonable people shouldn’t expect you to celebrate _their holiday_ just because you’re in this country.”

“Yeah,” said Kurapika. He took half a sip of nothing before he remembered the glass was empty. “Good point.”

“That’s true, but well, maybe you can still get him something small,” insisted the Someone, “just for the thought at least. You know?”

Karia scoffed at this suggestion. “You’re pressuring him to participate in a holiday that isn’t even part of his culture."

“I mean something like a card,” said the Someone. “Nothing major. Just a card.”

“It goes against what he believes.”

“But it’s only some paper and a festive greeting.”

“But can’t you see it’s not? It’s not just paper. It has a meaning….”

Kurapika was done listening to two strangers argue about his personal right to blow off Christmas or not, especially as the topic devolved into a debate over if cards (without money in them) really counted as gifts, or even served any other purpose beyond bragging about your family and how good you were at keeping an address book up-to-date. He wanted to walk the unpleasant drunk sensation off, at least before he ran into Leorio, who’d notice immediately and most likely ridicule him for it. He slipped away and quickly located Leorio downstairs at the edge of a large group, making excited comments to the person next to him in their own language and oblivious to Kurapika a whole room away peeking at him between guests. Kurapika settled against a wall in a quieter portion of the house, as far away from Leorio and his friends as possible. Then, all by himself, he waited. He wasn’t sure for what.

“Careful,” said the Someone from earlier, reappearing. Kaira was gone, probably still upstairs.

“Careful?” asked Kurapika. “Of what?”

“Marto, my manager, said there wouldn’t be any mistletoe here, but some guys brought some and hung it up anyway in protest. They said it’s a classic tradition we need to embrace. You’re just a few feet from being right under one of the boughs.”

Kurapika cast a disinterested glance up to where the Someone was pointing and noticed a sloppily tied bundle of leaves taped to a light fixture. Further off, another bundle of the same leaves had fallen to the ground and been torn apart by the feet of countless partygoers passing over it. At the same time, he noticed that the area immediately below the still hanging bough was completely devoid of loitering guests. No wonder it'd been so quiet here.

“What do I have to be careful of?” asked Kurapika warily.

“If you wait under the mistletoe, someone will think you’re waiting for a person to kiss you.”

“Any person to kiss you?”

“Pretty much. Though there’s probably a preference you’re supposed to have for who kisses you. It’s supposed to be for luck.”

“And does where I’m standing count as waiting for a kiss?" Kurapika looked around him, as if making double sure there wasn’t anyone lying in wait, hoping to land an unintentionally invited kiss on him or anyone else who got too close to the mistletoe.

“No, you’re outside the range, I think. I’d be easy for you to step into it on accident though, if you forget it’s there. If you turn down a kiss, it’s bad luck.”

“Is it supposed to be a trap like this?”

“Ideally, no,” said the Someone, apologetic because in this instance that wasn’t the case. “You’re supposed to stand under it on purpose, but some people just interpret that if you’re under it at all, they can kiss you. Pretty sure the guys who brought this were intending some kind of joke like that, trying to get an excuse to kiss some of the girls.”

“If it’s a problem, I’ll just take it down,” said Kurapika, materializing his chains under his long sleeves. “How many are there?”

“It’s too high. Maybe we can find Leorio, though? He can probably reach all of them by himself.”

“His might be able to, but you’re forgetting something.”

“What?”

“He’d have to stand under it to pull it down.”

“Do you me—”

“Someone might attack him. Or kiss him.”

“I doubt he—”

“It’s fine,” said Kurapika, tugging his sleeve back from his hand to reveals his chains. The Someone grew wide-eyed at the sight. “I can bring them down from a distance. No-one has to take the risk. Look.”

Kurapika pulled back his arm and then flung it forward sharply, sending the ball end of his dowsing chain soaring forward towards the light fixture. The Someone gasped as they realized what he was attempting, but miraculously, Kurapika’s aim was true, the force of his blow perfectly calculated. An instant later, the bough came straight down and hit the ground with a soft rustle of fresh, clumped leaves.

“See?” said Kurapika. “Minimal risk.”

“Are you sure you can do that for all of them?” asked the Someone skeptically. “Maybe you got lucky.”

“That wasn’t luck,” said Kurapika. “I can definitely do it again.”

The Someone was soon gasping along with amazement as it was proven that Kurapika certainly could do it again, and again, and as many times as necessary, taking down three more nearby boughs of various sizes with ease. The two of them searched the house together for more, and Kurapika brought them down, each and every time, with a single, perfect strike.

“No offense,” said the Someone breathlessly, “but there’s something kinda weird about you. Kinda like Leorio. Not bad, just kinda…weird.”

“I see how that could be an impression I make,” agreed Kurapika.

“Leorio’s also weirdly good at random stuff you don’t expect.”

“Such as?”

“Math. Money. Prices.”

“True. He can instantly convert up to fifteen different world currencies off the top of his head.”

“That’s so weird.”

“No, not that weird. He just thinks it’s useful to know.”

“How do you not find that weird?”

“Obviously it’s not something most people would know, but if it’s a part of what's important to him, it’s not really weird. If you know him, it isn’t so unusual.”

“Um. Okay. But in your case, what's the point of you being really good at hitting stuff with chains? Is that...important to you?”

“It’s part of my job.”

“What? What do you have to hit with chains that you wear on your hands for a job?”

“People. The chains are a weapon. I can’t afford to miss, so, I have to have to be very good.”

Subtly, but not subtle enough, the Someone stepped to the side, increasing the distance between the two of them. Kurapika wasn’t sure what they were so worried about. If Kurapika had wanted to take the Someone out, he’d have be able to regardless how much space was created or how fast they ran. A couple extra centimeters wouldn’t do a whole lot to stop him.

“If I recall correctly, there's another bough in the hall,” said Kurapika. “We should get that one next.”

“Right,” said the Someone. “Let’s.”

Kurapika led the way to the small entry hall by the front door, but when they arrived, he saw the bough of mistletoe that'd been hanging there was already gone. “Huh, I guess it fell on its own,” he said, scanning the ground. There was no trace of crushed leaves or berries anywhere.

“Maybe someone's thrown it away already,” he muttered to himself. Next to him, the Someone shrugged and said they should get the next one, above the stairs.

When they arrived to the stairs, however, they saw that the bough there, too, was missing.

“Did we get that one already?” asked the Someone. Kurapika shook his head.

“No. We didn’t. I think someone else is taking them down.”

“How? They’re so high up. We would’ve heard the commotion. I doubt anyone else be as quick or efficient as you hitting them with your chain thing.”

“I’m not sure,” said Kurapika, frowning in thought and squatting down like a television crime scene investigator. “The highest bough is the one on the iron chandelier above the fireplace in the great room, no? We should see if that one’s still up. I was saving it for last because it’s a little harder to aim with all the filigree. I don’t even know how anyone could've got it up there. My suspicion is that the host put that one up themselves. It's the perfect location, right by the fire. Nice and warm.”

“But that would make it the most inconvenient one of all, being right in front of the fireplace. No-one can warm themselves by the fire without potentially being mistaken for someone waiting under the mistletoe.”

“Maybe it’s there so the person waiting under it doesn’t get too cold.”

“Why would they get cold?”

“Maybe no-one wants to kiss them?”

“Well, that’s kinda a sad way to look at it.”

“But the host truly has to think of everything don’t they? Every possible contingency. Even the miserable possibility of a person nobody wants to kiss, not even for luck.”

“I don’t think—”

“Let’s go find it and bring it down," said Kurapika, hopping up from his heels. "It's actually not really very important to me anyway who put it up. After I bring it down, that won't matter.”

The Someone bristled at Kurapika’s suddenly bossy tone but miraculously chose to follow him into the great room anyway. There, to Kurapika and the Someone’s mutual amazement, someone they both knew was reaching up on his tip-toes to pull the hanging mistletoe down.

_Leorio._

“Oh, hey Kurapika,” said Leorio. His fingers brushed uselessly against the lowest hanging leaves of the plant, plucking at and breaking off a few sprigs while the rest of the bough remained firmly in place. “Marto asked me to get this down. Apparently half her staff only agreed to attend the party this year only if there wasn’t going to be mistletoe. They were very specific about it. I guess last year was some huge PR debacle, so they’re kinda pissed some clowns hung it up all over the place. There's a whole department feud going on or something.”

Leorio pushed himself up a little more on the tips of his toes, reached a tiny bit higher, and still failed. The chandelier swayed as he let go and went back to standing normally.

“Anyway, it’s a pain, this one,” he said. “The part where it’s attached is too high even for me. I have no idea how they even got to up there.”

Leorio leaned back with his hands on his waist and observed the mistletoe from another angle, trying to find a corner he could tug it down from. Kurapika watched him, an odd anxiety beginning to well up inside him with each passing second.

“Get over here, Kurapika,” said Leorio. “You’re the only person I know with enough balance to literally stand on my shoulders. You’ll definitely reach the knot up there, see? It’s tied with a string instead of taped.”

Kurapika took a step back. “No. You come over here, and I’ll knock it down.”

“But I just said it’s tied.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t stand right under it like that,” insisted Kurapika. “Someone might get the wrong idea.”

Leorio paused for a moment, confused, but gradually began to laugh when he realized what Kurapika was concerned about.

“They’ll get the wrong idea and what, Kurapika? And kiss me?” he asked. “Well, they’d have to be able to reach me first.”

“Think twice,” said Kurapika. “If you turn someone down, it's bad luck. So, they don’t have to reach you. You’ll have to let them kiss you if they try.”

“Nah,” said Leorio, still laughing and waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry. You don’t usually kiss men under the mistletoe. It’s women who are supposed to wait.”

“Maybe a hundred years ago when someone dreamed this up that was the case, but women don’t sit around waiting for a man to kiss them these days, alright? You’re taking a risk. It might not even be someone you like who wants to kiss you.”

“I’m not afraid of getting kissed by anyone. Whoever’s got the nerve to even try it has earned it, I say. I, for one, appreciate a bold move, and plus, it doesn't hurt to know you've got what it takes to get someone to want to kiss you.”

“You only say that because you don’t think it’s actually going to happen,” said Kurapika. At the same time, the Someone beside him stepped forward, right up to Leorio, and took a shot.

“So, are you waiting here under the mistletoe for anyone in particular?” asked the Someone in a surprisingly confident and flirtatious tone that made Leorio laugh, assuming it had to be part of a joke.

“Yeah, I am in fact waiting,” he said. “For my buddy Kurapika to get over here, except he seems to have figured I'm secretly trying to lure him in a kiss or something.”

The Someone stared at Leorio, taken aback. “You’re waiting for that guy to kiss you, then?”

“What? No. That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what you said.”

“I didn’t mean it how you.... I mean he needs to help take this down—”

“We all know,” blurted the Someone without waiting for the full explanation. They looked around as they spoke, flustered with the frantic energy of a trapped animal scanning the room for an escape. “This guy with a girl’s name shows up, and then you’re too busy to stay after class or visit the Christmas Grog Garden with your coworkers. We all assumed you were just coming up with some new excuse to avoid even the faintest possibility of spending a single second on festivities this year. We know how you are.”

“Okay, I’m not gonna lie, I did in fact use his visit here as an excuse to not drink grog, but—”

“And if Serolio hadn’t told us he saw you out Christmas shopping, in the flesh, buying a tree and everything when he missed his shift, Kar never would’ve caved and told us you’d made her promise not to tell anyone that the ‘guy visiting’ was real and not just something you’d made up.”

“That’s because if you doubted his existence, you wouldn’t try to meet him. He’s, uh, shy.”

“He’s not shy, Leorio. I’ve literally just met him, and he’s not shy.”

“It’s true. I’m not shy,” agreed Kurapika. “What the hell, Leorio?”

“And on top of that,” continued the Someone, “when we finally confronted you and implored you to bring this guy out at least once, you bundled him up in a ridiculous outfit so he could barely speak, and we couldn't see his face to check if he was actually the same guy Serolio and Kar saw or not.”

“I want to make it clear that that stupid outfit was Kurapika’s own choice. I wish I were lying. I wish there were a good reason for it, but honestly he chose to dress that way, and it had nothing to do with me.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, no, that part’s true,” said Kurapika to the Someone to avoid a misunderstanding. “I did it. I was hoping we could leave earlier that way.”

The Someone scoffed. “Typical. Can’t wait to fly right back to the Christmas love nest.”

Though he was no longer drunk, it took a moment for Kurapika to put this string of words into a sentence that conveyed a message he understood.

“The what?” he asked blankly. Leorio rolled his eyes at him.

“Xo thinks we’re together, Kurapika.”

“Xo?”

Leorio pointed to the Someone. Kurapika turned to them, shocked and feeling faintly betrayed, even though the two of them had only met that night, and he hadn't even know their name. With a tone like a disappointed parent generously allowing their offspring to explain themselves at least once, Kurapika demanded, “Why? Why would you think that? Explain it to me.”

“Because,” Leorio answered for Xo, “sometimes, when two people who aren’t biologically related to one another celebrate Christmas together, especially if one of those people doesn’t even like or celebrate Christmas at all normally, people jump to their own conclusions. And, Xo just happens to jump to conclusions faster than most.”

“But I thought Xo was trying to get you to kiss them just now,” said Kurapika. “I don’t know why this got deflected onto you and me. Xo’s stalling because you didn’t take the invitation seriously.”

Leorio looked over at Xo, who was busily looking everywhere else but back. He cast a questioning glance over Xo’s head at Kurapika to confirm, and Kurapika nodded. He pointed at the mistletoe, and then back at Leorio, making it clear that Leorio had done this to himself by ignoring Kurapika’s warning not to stand where he currently still stood.

“I, uh, I’m sorry,” said Leorio to Xo. “I’ll wait here if you actually want to kiss me. It’s not a big deal. Sorry.”

“The moment has passed,” said Xo with a heavy sigh. “Just take the mistletoe down.”

Leorio asked Kurapika to help him again while Xo promised to keep anyone from getting in the way. In stunned surprise, Xo watched Kurapika climb up Leorio like a tree and stand on his shoulders, as steady and casual as if he were standing on a six-foot tall podium that happened to be shaped like a man.

“Are you both acrobats?” asked Xo. “Is that how you two know each other?”

Kurapika liked the idea. “I never considered that,” he said as he finished untying the bough and pulling it free of the chandelier’s arms. “I've never thought people might think we’re acrobats. Strange.”

“They think you’re an acrobat because you can scale a tree in less than a minute,” said Leorio. “Gon’s faster, but that’s just because he can jump higher and gets a head start. Throw in Killua’s ability to climb up a wall like a gecko, and it’s no wonder I feel like I’m directing a circus when I’m around you guys.”

“You’re the strongman of the circus,” said Kurapika. “The muscle with a brain. Definitely not the ringmaster. If the rest of us are the—hey, stop moving so mu….”

Beneath Kurapika’s feet, Leorio’s weigh shifted slightly back and then forward. Kurapika flung out one arm to steady himself while holding the loose, cumbersome bough of mistletoe tucked in the crook of the other. Below him, Leorio and Xo had just finished a quick kiss Xo stolen when Leorio’s guard looked to them like it'd been dropped. Kurapika knew it hadn’t been. Leorio was too quick to have a kiss stole from him by someone so easily. He’d let it happen, only Kurapika wished it hadn’t been while he was still standing on his shoulders. The mistletoe bough slipped from his arm and landed square on Xo’s head, where it parted neatly and cascaded down like green, leafy hair framing the sides of their face.

Kurapika jumped from Leorio’s shoulders and landed alongside Xo to help them pull the mass of mistletoe free from their hair and clothing. He apologized sincerely, but no matter how many times he repeated the words, he sensed Xo didn’t believe him. Xo, Leorio had said, jumped to conclusions immediately. Kurapika could already guess what those conclusions might be now that he'd inadvertently bombed Xo with mistletoe.

As soon as the mistletoe was out of their hair, Xo turned on their heel and left, practically bounding away. Kurapika stared after them and sighed, not in the mood to chase them down and explain. He asked Leorio where to put the mistletoe, and Leorio suggested they find the host, which let them step away and out of the center of attention. Once the host was found and the mistletoe was out of their hands, they spent the rest of the party keeping a low profile in a corner, counting the minutes with little to say while strangers came over to speak to Leorio and get completely ignored by Kurapika. 

“So, it’s been a fair amount of time, two and half hours,” said Kurapika as he and Leorio found themselves leaning against the wall near the entry hall in the exact same position they’d started the party out. “I’ve successfully launched a fleet of rumors about the nature of your relationship to me, so, in an unprecedented but roundabout way, I think we’ve accomplished all we set out to do here and can leave.”

“How does my coworkers, friends, and total strangers all thinking you’re my holiday fling relate to what we—or rather _you_ —were hoping to accomplish ?”

“Well, they probably won’t pressure you to go to another party this year.”

“Is that so?”

“I think they have a lot of respect for a man who can get you, the stubborn idiot you are about Christmas, to actually celebrate. They’ve realized now that they will never, ever wield the absolute power over you that I seemingly do. If they dare invite you anywhere else, you only need to tell them I don’t want to go, and they won’t argue. They’ll know it’s impossible.”

Leorio groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Shit,” he said. “Actually, that’s probably right.” He looked at Kurapika over his fingertips when Kurapika didn’t respond. “How are you so chill about this?” he asked. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Not that much,” said Kurapika, shrugging. “I can accept whatever role or reputation I have to in order to accomplish my goals. In short, I’m used to not representing myself accurately, when I have to, to get what I want.”

“Lying,” Leorio corrected him. “You mean you’re used to lying to people.”

“Lying isn’t exactly it.”

“Only because you’re too proud to call it what it is, Kurapika.”

“I never lied,” said Kurapika sternly. “I never said anything. Your friends concluded wrongly from the little they perceived, and I let them maintain that wrong conclusion.”

Leorio muttered about how this definitely still sounded like lying to him.

“For now,” continued Kurapika louder over Leorio’s mumbling, “we’ll allow them to rest on their assumptions. Later, when it doesn’t matter anymore, you can tell them they were wrong. I won’t be here, though, so you’ll have to deal with that on your own. If you want my advice, I find that, occasionally, when rumors people share about me aren’t affecting my daily life, it’s easier to just let it go without ever setting people straight. You’ll have to choose what you want for yourself, but for now, if you use it to your advantage, you can guarantee no-one will drag you out of the house in the name of Christmas for the rest of the year. Even when I’m gone, you can lie that I’m still here and extend your free pass into January even. You have my permission to do so.”

“That’s a plan, I guess,” said Leorio with very little conviction. “Not great. Not terrible. Just…it’s a thing now. Cool. We can probably just leave whenever, then. Back to our _Christmas_ _love nest_ , apparently. Ugh. Thinking about it like that, I kinda want to rip everything in the apartment down and toss it all out the window.”

“If you try that, you’ll find yourself restrained until Gon and Killua arrive.”

“It’s my own apartment, Kurapika.”

“But it’s Alluka’s Christmas, Leorio. I swore I wouldn’t let you ruin it.”

From the main area of the house, the rumble of off-tune voices singing a hit holiday pop song rose and fell and then faded off on a note no-one could reach. They all came back again for the chorus, accompanied by laughter and voices that boomed even louder than ever. Kurapika pushed off from the wall and went to peer through the doorway to the rest of the party. He told Leorio that the guests had all got Santa hats somewhere in red and green. Most of the people were drunk. At this rate, no-one would even notice them leave. It was good chance to do so, and Leorio agreed.

“I guess that’s what they call holiday cheer,” said Kurapika as he rejoined Leorio in the hall. “They all seem especially cheerful. Merry. Jubilant. They all seem especially drunk.”

“It’s too bad it’s all Christmas songs,” said Leorio, “or else it’d be a good time.”

“Maybe you just haven’t drunk enough.”

“There isn’t enough alcohol in the world, Kurapika. Believe me. I try every year,” said Leorio. He motioned for Kurapika to come along and led him to the bedroom closet where he’d hidden Kurapika’s coat. He took it out, complaining all the while to Kurapika about how hard it’d been for him to get the door to shut after putting the coat in there earlier.

“C’mon,” said Leorio and waved a puffy white sleeve at Kurapika beckoningly. Kurapika rolled his eyes. “I’ll help you into your marshmallow suit. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all think Kurapika has great plans, but I'll never forget the boy's take on sushi even after having heard about it in books and deducing half of the process so expertly from the utensils used to make and eat it. How can a person be so right, and yet arrive at a conclusion that is so _utterly inedible_? What does this kid assume about the people of the outside world if he thinks they'll eat a literal dead fish covered in rice? Like? Eww??? No Kurapika we're still totally human people like you that's disgusting what the hell? _Would you eat this, Kurapika? Does this register as food to you?_
> 
> (In other news, I really felt Menchi in that chapter of the manga, and I totally agree with her comparing Kurapika to Leorio, who for his own trash sushi I believe just straight up assumed a weird Hunter woman would eat weird shit. Because Hunters are weird.)


	10. Hunting for Your Christmas Present

The caveat of getting his study period for the exam increased to a month was that at least once a week Kurapika was required to take an entire day off. On these days, he and Pairo would meet up in their favorite hiding places in the woods and pass the time dreaming up, step by step, everything Kurapika had to do after he left the village, because even when Kurapika was supposed to be taking a break, the upcoming exam and the freedom it would grant him were never far from his mind. 

Unfortunately, a thunderstorm prevented Kurapika and Pairo from going out to the woods together that day. Noticing Kurapika’s constant, anxious glances at the books on the desk as they sat around bored in the living room, Pairo offered to quiz him on his notes. In that way, even if they were stuck inside, the day wouldn’t be wasted.

The arrival of Kurapika’s mother an hour later put an end to their unsanctioned study session. Kurapika needed a break, she told Pairo, or else he’d break his brain cramming too many facts into it. Of course she wanted to see her son prove the Elders wrong and explore the outside world almost as much as Kurapika himself want it, but he’d burn himself out studying too hard for too long. He was still a kid and needed to have fun once and a while. They couldn't forget to have fun like normal kids.

For this reason, without accepting any complaints or attempts at “logical” debate from Kurapika, Kurapika’s mother sent the boys away from the temptation of the desk and textbooks and into the bedroom, where they could play or chat or do something, anything, that didn't involve books.

Kurapika, however, was twice as stubborn as his mother when told he couldn’t do something. A few weeks ago, after she’d caught him sneaking around at night to study with a flashlight under the dining table and grounded him from going near the desk for the rest of the day, he’d made sure to stash a few extra review notebooks around the house just in case he was punished again. Most of these notebooks were about holidays and important cultural events in the world, since these were the topics he found the hardest to memorize. Kurapika was very much a fan of knowing “why” certain things happened, but many of the practices and cultural beliefs of the world didn’t exist for clear-cut reasons. Learning them felt like memorizing an endless list of unrelated symbols and traditions in which the only thing in common happened to be that some of them took place around the same times of year.

In the bedroom with the door half shut to prevent his parents from seeing in, Kurapika took out a notebook hidden beneath a corner chest. Inside were notes on winter festivals, which were Kurapika's least favorite. He immediately skipped to the section on the how different cultures celebrated the transition to the new year, since most of these traditions were tied to people’s wishes for the future, which made them somewhat easier to remember. 

Kurapika had just finished explaining to Pairo about the Lunar New Year and lighting fireworks, feeling very proud of himself for not missing a detail. However, instead of turning the page forward to the next culture’s new year celebrations, Pairo turned the pages back. Now, they’d come to Christmastime, which Kurapika dreaded. Hoping Pairo would lose interest, he said something vague about the holiday being a birthday festival of some god, so people exchanged gifts for it. Pairo wasn't deterred and didn’t stop flipping through the notebook. He'd noticed just how long the section devoted to Christmastime was, and it intrigued him to hear why a birthday for a god involved so much work.

“There’s a lot of regional variation,” explained Kurapika dismissively. “But, the main thing is gifts. So, hey, tell me. What would you want for Christmas, Pairo?” Kurapika wanted to keep the discussion focused on gifts and not the whole confusing rest of the holiday. “I’ll get you a Christmas present when I’m gone, okay? Pick something.”

“Christmas is in December,” said Pairo, pointing to the date written in big, bolded letters by Kurapika in the middle of the page so that he wouldn’t forget it. “It’s April right now. The holiday’s more than half a year away.”

“Yeah,” said Kurapika, hiding his mortification that he’d mixed up the foreign names of the months after August again and confused December for September. “But,” he said, “if I pass the exam in a few weeks, then I’ll be gone for a while. Who knows if I’ll be back by Christmas in December, even? I’ll get you something cool when I’m gone just in case. Tell me what you want.”

Pairo furrowed his brow and squinted down at the page. “Does it have to be something Christmassy?” he asked with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

“Yes. Of course. It’s a _Christmas_ present. There’s a list of Christmas things on the next page after that one if you aren’t sure.”

“But what if you come back in June? Or August? Or November?”

“So what if I do?”

“There might not be a lot of Christmas stuff around that early.”

“Ah, good point,” said Kurapika. He thought deeply for a moment, reorganizing the order of foreign months in his head and agreeing that leaving for six months straight was probably too long for his very first trip. “But you know,” he said after a while, “once I can leave, I can go whenever I want, right? No-one can stop me. So, I can go on another trip in December and get you something special in time for Christmas.”

“The people that celebrate Christmas don’t live near Lukson Province,” said Pairo, who’d continued reading while Kurapika had been thinking. “Even in December, it’ll be difficult. It’ll take too long to reach those places in a month.”

“Don’t worry so much,” said Kurapika, his optimism overflowing. “I’m going to be a Hunter one day, so, I’ll definitely be able to find you something for Christmas. What kind of Hunter would I be if I couldn’t? Hunters have to be able to find anything, no matter how impossible.”

Pairo agreed automatically, always taken in by Kurapika’s infectious belief in himself, though deep down he remained somewhat skeptical. Kurapika wasn’t a Hunter yet. That goal was still a long way off.

“What’s holly?” asked Pairo, reading the word off a list of Christmas symbols as he searched for something Christmassy that he might like.

“A plant.”

“What’s so great about it?”

“It grows in winter.”

“What’s mistletoe?”

“Another plant.”

“And what’s great about it?”

“It, uh…” Kurapika winced, “…it grows in winter?”

Pairo set the notebook down and looked at Kurapika. “You don’t know what either of those are besides that they’re names for plants, do you?”

“I think people drink one of them in a tea.”

“That’s not written here at all, Kurapika. If it’s true, it has nothing to do with Christmas.”

Kurapika groaned in exasperation and threw himself backwards onto the bed where he was sitting. He covered his eyes with the palms of his hands and didn’t move. “I can’t know everything,” he complained. “Give me a break. That’s impossible.”

“But the exam….”

Kurapika let his arms drop, his hands falling to the sides of his face. He stared up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.

“I don’t think they’re going to ask me about holly and mistletoe on the exam,” he said, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of this more than Pairo. “Seriously. If I don’t understand it, then they won’t understand it either, and they’re not going to give me a question they themselves can’t answer.”

This didn’t sound like the Kurapika Pairo knew. “Who told you that?” he asked. “Your mom?”

“My dad said it was like that,” said Kurapika. “He said I needed to study smartly, not study everything. My brain can’t hold everything, and anyway, I’ll forget half of all this stuff the moment I’ve saddled up and started heading out of the village. You can’t really learn all this stuff for real just by memorizing it. You have to live the experience for it to really stick.”

“Your dad said all that?”

“Yeah. I don’t really get it, but he said I will later, when I’m older, after I’ve traveled more.”

“Traveled _more_? I thought your dad wasn’t happy about you taking the exam. He doesn’t really want you to go.”

“He still doesn’t. But he told me that for now, he’s not that worried because he thinks I’m going to fail.”

“What?”

“He told me I’m going to have to make more than one attempt. No-one really passes the first time, and those are all adults who take it. I’m just a kid. All I can expect is to learn how the exam works on my first try, and then, in a few years when I’ve grown up more and have stopped trying to rush everything like I am now, the Elder will be lenient, and I can try again. Then, _maybe_ I’ll pass.”

“Do you think that’s true?”

“No,” said Kurapika. He sat up and leaned in close to Pairo sitting on the bed next to him. “I promised to buy you a Christmas present,” he said as he placed a hand on Pairo’s shoulder. “So, even if the Elder will probably let me take the exam again, it doesn't matter. I can't fail assuming he'll let me take it again whenever I'm 'more mature about it' and 'really understand what I'm getting into'. I have to pass it now.”

“I’m not going to be upset about a Christmas present,” said Pairo, glancing away with a shrug and then looking back up. “I don’t even know what Christmas is. I don’t really care about it.”

“I also promised to find a doctor.”

Pairo looked away again and started picking at the edge of the notebook page. He didn’t answer, and didn’t meet Kurapika’s eye this time, even after seconds began to pass. Kurapika let go and fell back into the bed once more, releasing the tension with a loud sigh and demanding Pairo pick out a present, or else Kurapika was going to bring him a lump of coal in a sock.

“A lump of _what_ in a sock?” asked Pairo, frowning down at the notebook. “Coal? Like...the fuel?”

“It’s supposed to be the worst present,” said Kurapika. “Look on page thirty-two. Kids who are bad get coal. Pretty much all the gift-giving characters bring coal as a punishment to kids who weren’t good enough for a nice present.”

Pairo squinted at the tiny, circled page numbers. He shook his head and handed Kurapika the notebook. Kurapika turned the pages for him and gave it back. “Coal would at least be something I’m familiar with,” said Pairo after reading over the short blurb about it. “What’s so bad about getting coal?”

“If it’s a choice between some coal and a real present, like toys or candy, then the coal is boring.”

“Some people would like to have coal. It keeps a fire going longer than wood. It smells, though.”

“A kid doesn’t need coal. For a kid, it’s a bad present.”

“I’d give the coal to Teira’s family. They use coal sometimes to heat the baths.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I think a worse gift would just be some rocks or something. Rocks are usually pretty useless. Or maybe a handful of dirt. Or some leaves like you see everywhere on the ground.”

“Maybe in other countries coal is just everywhere on the ground, like dirt or leaves? Maybe for them, it’s really common. Remember that story in Hunter D about the city of gold and silver, where no-one thought that stuff was valuable because it was everywhere? Maybe the place where they invented Christmas is like that, but with coal.”

Pairo absolutely agreed with this, especially when he read that one of the gift bringing characters, Santa Claus, traveled through chimneys to enter houses. One of the common halls of the village had a giant oven to bake and a giant fireplace for roasting and cooking in large quantities. He and Kurapika imagined that in foreign homes, because the people lived in cities and not small villages with their clans, everyone had a huge fireplace right in the house with a chimney big enough to climb up and down. Maybe there were stairs and a ladder inside. Maybe they built footholds in the bricks and locked the grate on top with a key like a door they could open to reach the roof.

Kurapika and Pairo were busy trying to imagine a good reason why foreigners would need to reach their roofs through a chimney when Kurapika’s father stuck his head into the room and told them it was lunchtime. He immediately spied the notebook open on Pairo’s lap before the boys remembered to hide it away.

“How many times did your mother tell you today before she went out not to study for the exam, Kurapika? At this rate, even if you do miraculously pass, you won’t be able to go anywhere because you'll be grounded.”

“We weren’t studying,” said Kurapika as he leapt to his feet. “I mean, not really. It’s raining, so we were just reading together.”

“I know what that is,” said his father, pointing to the open notebook that'd just snapped shut in Pairo’s hands. “You hid some books and things around the house for when your mother or I say the desk is off-limits, didn’t you?”

Before Kurapika could craft a stumbling and poorly considered lie, Pairo spoke up over his shoulder.

“It’s true he wasn’t studying,” said Pairo. “I was reading about the holidays when Kurapika was trying to study earlier, and I was curious about this one, Christmas, so I brought the notebook with me to ask him about it. They have a lot of presents, you know? Kurapika was asking me what present I’d want if I celebrated Christmas. That was all.”

Kurapika’s father crossed his arms and surveyed the two boys doubtfully. Kurapika shifted his gaze between his father and Pairo, waiting to see if he was about to get in trouble or not. Pairo maintained an expression of perfect innocence.

“I’m sorry if this was studying,” said Pairo, hoping down and stepping forward. He held out the notebook to Kurapika’s father with an apologetic smile. “I was just curious and had a lot of questions. I’m going to become a Hunter, too, one day, so, I like when Kurapika tells me about the outside world.”

Kurapika father sighed as he accepted the notebook from Pairo, tucking it under his arm before stepping back from the doorway so they could all go to eat at the table.

“You should let Kurapika enjoy some of his time here, in the real world, at home, instead of in his head imagining places he might never see,” said Kurapika’s father to Pairo as Kurapika went ahead of them, catching every word. “If he spends all his time studying, he’ll forget what he already knows. He might even forget his own name, you know? There’ll be no space left.”

“Kurapika never forgets anything,” said Pairo. “And how can someone study so hard that they forget their name? That’s silly.”

“I’m exaggerating,” said Kurapika’s father with a smile. “But let him live here with us for a while instead of in books, okay?”

Kurapika’s father tossed the notebook onto the desk as they passed it and went to take a seat at the table. Kurapika grumbled to himself now that the notebook was lost to him completely. Tomorrow, his father would probably go through the house looking for anything else Kurapika might’ve hidden. The man was patient and careful, unlike his mother, who prefered to work quickly and only checked the most obvious places. His father wouldn’t miss a thing, and would never again lose track of exactly how many notebooks and textbooks were supposed to be on the desk from that point on.

“I really do like learning about all the people and places,” said Pairo, looking wistfully towards the desk across the room from where they were sitting. “I wish the Elders would let me take the exam with Kurapika.”

“I know you do,” said Kurapika’s father as he lifted the lid of a pot to fan its contents lightly before he could serve everyone lunch. “You’re as adventure-crazed as he is by now. Even his mother’s getting swept up in it.” He smiled somewhat sadly down at the pot. “All of you, dreaming about what’s outside the village. But…sometimes, imagining these things all the time becomes like starting on a journey you haven’t actually begun. And then, by only focusing on what hasn’t happened yet, you miss out on the life already happening around you. In your mind you're already long gone.” He glanced over the table and laughed lightly to himself. “Like Kurapika right now, who’s hardly listening to anything we're saying.”

Kurapika stared into the middle distance, oblivious as he plotted out how to get to the other books he’d hidden without his father noticing. Pairo could take some with him when he left, hidden under his clothes. Then, his father wouldn’t be able to confiscate all of them later.

“We should make sure neither of you forgets how much we all like being back at home when the adventuring is over,” said Kurapika’s father. He shook his head as continued to stir and fan the food in the pot. “Safe, sound, together,” he said. “As long as possible until….”

He stopped speaking as he looked up over the table. Pairo wasn’t listening to him, either. Everyone around him seemed deaf to his words and half gone already. With a sigh, he served the food on the boy’s empty plates and called them both back, at least for a moment, to eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of this fic and stuff, I figure Kurapika got more than a week to study for the exam to leave his village. Maybe originally it was supposed to be a week, but like, I'd rather think they changed their minds and were a bit more realistic to make it like a month or something (after Kurapika stopped sleeping and eating just to study because he's got such strength of his resolve or something and they were like "oh shit this kid will die" and also like "hey but on the faraway chance he passes he'll have only a week's worth of crammed studies in his head to guide him and that's kinda horrifying"). 
> 
> I like to think the Elders of the village spent that time making Kurapika's exam the most impossible exam they could. Which explains the question about that clan that greets people by touching butts. (Though honestly why they assumed a twelve-year-old wouldn't _instantly_ remember something like that _for the rest of their life_ is beyond me. I would've probably put a lot more economic and legal questions in there if I wanted to set up a child to fail....)
> 
> Also, hey, I totally forgot it was only a week he had, and I'm too lazy to re-write the parts of this fic referencing how long he's been studying.


	11. The Long Wait

“You know, when I was a kid, Christmas was my favorite holiday.”

“I’m pretty sure Christmas is every child’s favorite holiday in this part of the world, Leorio. Don't feel bad.”

Leorio slumped further into the couch cushions and shut the book he’d been trying to study from. He placed it on the ground next the couch in defeat and sat back. It was the third time he’d done this, down to the very same gestures and segue into idle conversation. In a few minutes, he’d begin to pace the apartment, and then, after he was tired of that, attempt to read his book. Once he was tired of reading...rinse and repeat.

“What’s not for kids to like about Christmas?” asked Leorio. “It’s a lot of candy and a lot of presents. We don’t ask for much.”

“Don’t lie,” said Kurapika, who never stopped turning the pages of his own book on the tablet in his lap, unperturbed. “I’ve seen a child’s Christmas list before. You’d ask for the moon if it were covered in flashing lights and made T-Rex sounds when you pushed a button.”

“That would be a sweet moon, though,” said Leorio. “On every kid's Christmas list. They’d call it Lunasaurus Rex, and it’d sell out in York Shin in literally hours. People would riot. There'd be mayhem.”

Kurapika paused and saved his place.

“There was a mafia capo in Penox City who once hijacked a cargo airship headed for Zaban,” he said. “Then, he let it go. All the cargo was intact when it arrived to the airport a day late, everything except for the highly anticipated shipment of a few hundred over-hyped game consoles. Everyone in the mafia community was waiting to see if any of the stolen devices would show up on the black market later, but they never did. Apparently the capo hadn’t stolen them for business reasons, but rather, as a one-stop shop for Christmas gifts.”

“You know what, I think I remember that,” said Leorio, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It was in the news for weeks because it wasn’t possible to make a second shipment before the holidays. I think people Zaban just about rioted over it, too. A rich politician was busted for having ties to the mafia after he got one of the consoles through the black market. It was a huge scandal.”

“I know. My boss’s daughter owned one herself. She received it as a gift.”

“Really? One of the stolen ones?”

“Yes.”

“It still worked? I heard a lot of those ended up being unreliable and breaking down.”

“Of course it worked. She hardly used it. I had Basho test it before we sold it.”

“Damn. It must’ve been worth a lot. Especially since she got it for free, and it wasn’t broken.”

“It was worth a fair amount,” admitted Kurapika coolly, “but mostly because it was one of the famously stolen ones, and she still had the original wrapping on the box and the card that came with it.” He hesitated a second, then added, just as coolly, “Still, even though she wasn’t using it, it ended up one of the first things of hers we sold that she protested. She locked herself in her room and went on a half-hearted hunger strike for two days to convince us not to sell it. We sold it anyway and let her maids deal with her tantrum.”

“Ouch. Tough times in the mafia community. I guess even rich criminals have it rough.”

“Her father’s the criminal. His daughter’s just spoiled.”

“True. But, she’s not really normal anyway. You know?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you sell her other…stuff?”

“When it’s been convenient for me, yes. We’ve been rebranding the family business and needed to let go of items that are illegal to own in the country we operate from.”

“That makes sense,” said Leorio. “I get it.” Kurapika nodded and glanced back down at his tablet. Before he could reach for it, Leorio spoke up again.

“You know, it’s not often you talk about what you do,” he said. “You’ve been stuck around here so long that we’re finally talking about work now. Nothing left but that. But, hey, it’s not too bad. It’s your life, I guess, your work. It’s cool to know a little about it.”

Kurapika shifted in his seat, re-crossed his legs the other direction, and took as long as possible until he finally decided what to say.

“I guess."

Leorio got the hint and changed the subject back to something more seasonal.

“So, at work, since you all live there, do you all celebrate the holidays together? Do you do some kind of gift exchange, for example? Although that sounds like kind of a nightmare. If I had to do a gift exchange with you, I’d cry myself to sleep every night until Christmas. You’re one of those impossible people no-one can shop for, I bet, even the people who spend every day around you. I’d have to buy you socks like a coward.”

“I don’t know if that'd be the case or not. I don’t participate,” said Kurapika. “Some of the others organize stuff like that. I’m sort of everyone’s boss, though. I stay out of it.”

“Oh yeah, true. No-one wants to buy a gift for their boss.”

“I also don’t like figuring out presents for people.”

“No-one does. You’re lucky you’ve got an easy out.”

“I supposed I have.”

“Have you ever received a present from anyone at all? Ever?”

“…No. Not for Christmas.”

“Huh,” said Leorio thoughtfully. “I’d say that’s too bad, but then, you don’t celebrate, so you aren’t really missing out, right? It’s just the little kid inside me, I guess, who thinks what a bummer it’d be to not get a present on Christmas. When you’re a kid, that’s sort of what it’s all about.”

“But I do give presents, though.”

“Wait, really?”

“I give my employees bonuses. I have to organize that every year. And I give them money to host their parties. It’s expensive.”

“When you’re an adult, that sometimes feels like that’s all there is, doesn't it?" Leorio laughed this own observation, but Kurapika just shrugged. "Still, the bonus isn’t really much of a gift, though. It’s just a standard practice with some businesses.”

“I also have to arrange the gifts for my boss’s daughter.”

“He can’t do it himself?”

“Why would he when he’s got staff?”

“That’s such a pain.”

“Sometimes it is. But it’s easier now that we’re keeping a tighter budget. This year for Christmas, as a gift, all I had to do was promise not to sell off the small case of hair of the actress Sara I retrieved for my boss’s daughter a few years ago. As far as gifts go, it was fairly cheap for me. No shopping or navigating her Christmas list required.”

“That’s a horrible gift, Kurapika.”

“According to Neon, I’m horrible anyway because I enforce all the changes she doesn’t like in how the family’s run. I also bear all the bad news. So, I guess it’s a fitting gift coming from me.”

Leorio stared. “Listen to yourself, he said. “You make it sound like nothing. I get it that a rich girl probably owns a lot of useless stuff she needs to get rid of, but don’t you even feel a tiny bit bad about selling off her things and having her beg you not to sell off at least one for her _as a gift_?”

“Not when it’s a part of her collection, no,” said Kurapika. He inhaled deeply before saying next, without emotion, “The only thing I feel bad about is how quickly I can find a new buyer. No matter what the thing is, there’s always someone out there looking for it and willing to pay an outrageous price the second it’s up for sale. It disgusts me.”

Leorio cringed and, in a show of support, murmured something generic about rich people being crazy. Kurapika, as always, reminded him that crazy people were crazy. Being rich just gave them more freedom to act on whatever insane thing had captured their interest.

“Gon and Killua arrive with Alluka on Friday at what time?” asked Leorio as he stood up from the couch and began to pace the room. Kurapika didn’t usually let the conversation run so long, but now Leorio was bored again.

“Around seven in the evening."

“Is there anything we have left to get? Anything you might’ve been saving for the last day, perhaps?”

“No,” said Kurapika. He took up his notebook from the coffee table and double-checked all the crossed out pages. It was the third time he’d done so on Leorio’s behest that day. “We seem to have everything in order. Now, we just wait. That’s it.”

Leorio paced a little quicker, his aggravation growing.

“Have we checked the lights?”

“I tested them before I had you string them up.”

“Have we tested them since?”

“I did, while you were at work.”

“And today?”

“I sincerely doubt they’ve deteriorated so suddenly in the space of twenty-four hours.”

“If they were cheap lights….”

“They weren’t cheap lights. You know that.”

“You’re right. They weren’t.”

“So, don’t worry. The lights are fine. They’ll be ready and working when everyone gets here.”

Leorio sighed and swung to a abrupt stop in front of the tree. He stared into it for a long time, thoughtful. Kurapika shifted where he sat, uneasy in the sudden quiet now that Leorio was standing still.

“Maybe we should finish the tree?” suggested Leorio. “It’s kind of awkward to have it undecorated when the rest of the apartment is done.”

“Alluka should get to do something when she’s here.”

“What if she’s too tired?”

“Kids are never too tired at Christmas. You told me that yourself.”

“But she doesn’t really know the holiday. She might consider it work.”

“No, you’re just bored because you’ve been stuck at home all day and there’s nothing left to do.”

Leorio groaned and turned around with a dramatic slump of his shoulders. Wearily, he shuffled back to the couch, taking his seat so heavily it knocked the couch back against the wall. “You’re right,” he said glumly. “It’s so boring. I keep thinking something’s wrong, that we’re missing something, but…I honestly believe you’ve thought of everything. And yet, at the same time, I’m so used to something going wrong.”

“Leorio, I promised I’d do this holiday right. I haven’t overlooked anything. You know me. You know how serious I am.”

“I do, but now there’s nothing left for me to do. It’s so boring just sitting around here, waiting for whenever everyone gets in.”

“I told you that I’d make sure you didn’t have to worry about anything.”

“But now I feel useless.”

Kurapika shrugged. He tossed over the Christmas notebook when Leorio held out a hand to for it. Silently, not skipping over a single page, Leorio read through it. He put the notebook down a moment later, int he same defeated manner as when he'd been reading his textbook earlier. There was truly nothing left. He'd seen it himself.

From outside, muted by the thick glass of the window facing the street, an accordion player cycled through an endless litany of holiday tunes. In the uneasy silence of the apartment, Kurapika and Leorio listened to the music instead of speaking. To himself, Leorio picked out songs he recognized and grumbled in annoyance as the lyrics to every single one echoed up from the back of his mind. Kurapika, meanwhile, knowing none of the songs well enough to feel perturbed by them, came to a slow realization.

“You know what,” he said. “You can pick out music for Alluka to listen to when she’s here. I don’t know Christmas music well. The different songs change a lot between the countries I’ve lived, so, I’ve never kept track of them. You, however, might have a better feel for what a kid would like.”

“Do you want me to make a playlist or something?” asked Leorio, not opening his eyes after he’d leaned back and shut them during the long moment of quiet. “That sounds like absolute torture.”

“It would add to the festive atmosphere to have some music playing, don’t you think?”

Leorio sat up, slow and unwilling, as if he were rising from a deep sleep. He ran his hands over his face and mentally psyched himself up for task. His unhappy expression gradually grew firm with resolve as he came ot accept what had to be done.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll work on it.”

He stood and went to the desk, where he put on a pair of headphones and plugged them into his phone. For the next few minutes, the apartment was as quiet as ever, but the nervous energy Leorio had been spreading through it with his pacing and grumbling had dissipated. It was as peaceful now as Kurapika could ever hope. As faraway, tinny sounds of holiday music shifted from one track to the next rapidly, the sign of Leorio progressing as quickly as he could through a seasonal playlist he'd found, Kurapika took the opportunity to go back to reading and relaxing. He had to enjoy at least few Christmas-free hours on his own interests before Gon, Killua, and Alluka arrived, or he'd get just as sick of it as Leorio and ruin everything, too.


	12. Crisis

Opening the Nostrade manor to public tours had been Light’s idea of a way to help solidify the family’s newer, cleaner reputation. The doors of the estate were to be as open as the family’s business dealings, and for 2,250 jenni per adult (or 2,000 for students and seniors, and 1,250 jenni per child under the age of twelve), the average person could step right in and have a look at all the opulence and amenities a once profitable mafia career could afford. What rooms weren’t on display had been converted into offices from which not only the estate itself was managed, but also the family’s security business and gambling ventures around the world. As for Light Nostrade and his daughter, whenever they were in residence at the manor, they kept to their own private wing. At the present time, however, Neon was attending school abroad and rarely home, while her father preferred to stay in his own luxury apartment in the city where he wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of using back stairs to avoid tourists.

What this whole new, openness policy meant for Kurapika was an increase in general security dispersed over a wider area over the manor and its grounds. The extensive coverage and complications arising from coordinating so many schedules wasn't something he had time to take care of, and so, he'd put Linsen in charge instead. This freed Kurapika to focus more on acquiring security contracts, as well as representing Light, who understood games and casinos better than security, while overseeing the family’s gambling operations abroad. In a similar representative capacity, Kurapika would occasionally stop by the Nostrade manor to check on how things were running and to discuss the problems and concerns of the staff that might merit their boss’s attention.

“Okay. Explain to me, one more time, how exactly a guest was able to stumble across Miss Nostrade’s collection five floors down in the lowest basement level of this facility,” said Kurapika, pinching the bridge of his nose as he gestured with his free hand for the man sitting before him to speak. Behind him, Linsen, who’d been on an errand for Kurapika in the city for three days when the trespassing incident had occurred, glared down at his substitute head of security with quiet fury.

“It was a child,” said the sub. “We aren’t completely certain how they got there. Children are…clever. And small.”

“And adults are dull and large?” asked Kurapika.

“I don’t mean—”

“I know what you didn’t mean,” interrupted Kurapika. “But the only explanation you’re giving me for how this could've happened is that you underestimated the capability of a loose child, left entirely to its own devices, to wander into protected areas where it didn't belong. Speaking of which, where was the fifth floor security team at the time?”

“When the mother reported to us that her child had gone missing, and with so many folks having gone home for the November fifth holiday and leaving us without much spare personnel to conduct a search, I chose to call up a few of the team members patrolling underground to assist us.”

"Only a few?”

“Half the third and fourth underground floors, and everyone from the fifth.”

“Why everyone from the fifth?”

“It didn’t seem likely that a child would make it that far.”

“Ah,” said Kurapika with an ingratiating nod of understanding, “but unfortunately the child was too clever. _And small_.”

“We, uh, we overlooked the direct elevator to the fifth floor from Miss Nostrade’s private rooms.”

“I see,” said Kurapika and sat back in his seat. He’d been waiting to hear about Neon’s private elevator. Realistically, it was the only way down to her collection without passing through several floors and, in ideal conditions, by several highly trained security teams.

“Security in the residential spaces of the manor is limited when the family isn’t home,” the sub continued. “We suspect that’s how the child found a way down.”

“There’s a passcode to enter before you can operate the elevator,” said Kurapika, though he’d already guessed what had happened there, too.

“Miss Nostrade had it removed when she was here last month. She couldn’t remember the code and thought it was inconvenient.”

Kurapika sighed at what had turned out to be a perfect storm of absolute carelessness.

“You already know I’m going to tell you that you should’ve increased security to her room the instant she removed such a crucial measure of protection from her personal point of access to her collection,” said Kurapika. He glanced at Linsen, who’s furious aura had retreated instantly the moment he’d been proven partially culpable for the error.

“Do you have an excuse?” asked Kurapika to Linsen. Linsen lowered his gaze and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I ordered the passcode device to be reinstalled after Miss Nostrade departed, as it’s more cost effective than hiring on more staff, but I failed to personally verify the device had been reinstalled as requested.”

“You shouldn’t have needed to,” said Kurapika. “The fault in this instance still rests primarily in your subordinate who cleared out the fifth floor to search for the child. If the team had remained there, even a third of them, the boy would’ve been detected the moment he arrived on that level.”

Linsen relaxed and once again rounded on his substitute, who groaned weakly. Upon meeting the man’s gaze, Kurapika found nothing but sorrowful resignation as he waited for Kurapika’s judgment.

“I don’t understand why removing everyone from the fifth floor was deemed necessary. If even a single guard had remained at their post, we wouldn’t have the situation as it stands now: one terrified and likely traumatized child telling his mother he found monsters and dead people in a scary room under the manor. Rumors will spread that the Nostrade family still deals actively in the human flesh collecting trade. And that sort of publicity undermines the uneasy trust we’ve strove so long to build between the family and the government.”

“I understand,” murmured the sub.

“Furthermore, knowing the security of the collection has been compromised for quite some time makes me deeply suspect that something may have been stolen in that time.”

“We ran a full inventory check immediately,” the man assured him. “Nothing was missing.”

“To your eyes, perhaps not. But, there are methods for creating exact copies of any item in Miss Nostrade’s collection which would be completely indistinguishable to the average person. Therefore, Linsen will check over the items himself this evening to guarantee everything is indeed accounted for.”

From over his shoulder, Kurapika heard Linsen let out a soft tsk of displeasure at the prospect of spending the rest of his night combing through every inch of Neon’s macabre showroom.

“For you,” Kurapika continued to the sub, “you’ll be transferred to our recruitment center in Zaban.” 

The man visibly deflated at the news, as, with this transfer, all prospects of career advancement within the family plummeted out of reach. 

“If we discover anything has been stolen,” said Kurapika, “you’ll naturally be considered our first suspect. For this reason, I’ll have to ask you not to leave the estate for any reason until Linsen has completed his survey of Miss Nostrade’s collection. If you refused to do so, you will be detained by force.”

“I understand.”

“Good,” said Kurapika. “And at this point, are there any more details of the incident you wish to share with me, anything you might’ve forgot before, or something additional that you believe could be of value to me as I work to mitigate the consequences of this egregious error?”

Though Kurapika wished to remain impartial, it was impossible not to see the sub’s actions in a suspicious light as the man paused to speak, thought better of it, and then almost spoke again. Kurapika waited, nodding encouragingly for the man to go ahead, but he continued to waver the same way for nearly a full minute.

“One thing,” said the sub at last. Kurapika almost sighed with relief. “When I was meeting with the mother after the child had been found, I made sure to inform her that her child had wandered into a storage area for the estate's holiday decorations. Whatever the child might’ve thought they’d seen, it was their own imagination twisting the details. I was clear with her that the child had most likely wandered into the holiday storeroom after seeing something Christmas themed, since all children are fanatical about Christmas, even as early as November. In the process of searching for more Christmas things, the child also stumbled across remnants of a haunted house left over from Halloween.” 

The man paused, but Kurapika and Linsen remained quiet. He concluded with a shrug. “Anyway,” he said, “she seemed to believe the story at the time.”

“Not everyone will believe that same story so easily,” said Kurapika. “The Nostrade family has a dark reputation in this region.”

“I understand,” said the sub. “And at this point, I have nothing further to add.”

Soon after, Kurapika ended the meeting and sent the sub away in the company of a pair of guards who'd been waiting outside the door. Linsen stayed back and took the man’s now empty seat before Kurapika’s (but technically Light’s) wide, commanding oak desk. Instead of hunching over guiltily, waiting for his boss’s fury to rain down on him, Linsen pulled the chair forward until he and Kurapika were sharing the desk between them. Kurapika continued to lean back into Light's spacious, leather executive's chair, observing Linsen tiredly with his head resting heavily in his right hand.

“He’ll be hard to replace after you’ve sent him to Zaban,” said Linsen. “I’m not saying it was the wrong choice. I’m just saying it’ll be a hassle finding someone who can take up the reins when I’m not around. This whole thing has been a huge mess and an even bigger disappointment. Even worse, it just had to happen right before you got here. I’m sorry for all the trouble.”

“We’re just lucky it was a child and not a thief,” said Kurapika. “Or well, at least so far as we know. I might despise that collection, but it’s still incredibly valuable. It’s still a target.”

“I’ll make sure to check well for any Nen copies.”

“That’s a good start. I also want you to check for signs of Nen in the room itself, in the elevator, in all the stairwells, and on each of the basement floors.”

Linsen frowned. “Are you serious? That’ll take me all night.”

“Then let it take you all night.”

“Maybe tomorrow….”

“No. It has to be done as soon as possible.”

“But you’ll at least help me, won’t you? Headquarters is short on qualified Nen users, even without a major holiday limiting everyone’s availability.”

“No, I won’t be able to help you. I have plans for the evening that I can’t change.”

Linsen wasn’t happy with this and didn’t conceal the incredulous look he immediately shot in Kurapika’s direction. “This isn’t another situation of you telling me you have plans, and then I find out later you spent the entire evening training in the staff's gym, is it?”

“No.”

“But I’m one of the people who manages your schedule. I know for a fact you haven’t got work tonight. No meetings, no social engagements, not even a dinner with a department head, _nothing_. Not unless you changed things around on me at the last minute.”

“No, this isn’t for work, what I have to do,” said Kurapika, looking so tired it was hard not to believe him. “I have a personal obligation.”

Linsen receded into his chair. “…Oh,” he said simply. Kurapika stared.

“Oh?”

“I don’t remember the last time you ever took some—if any—personal time in the past. It’s just not the first thing I would've have expected. That’s all.”

Kurapika scoffed softly into his hand without looking over. “Why wouldn’t I? I have a life, Linsen. I have my own things.”

“Yes, But well, don’t take it the wrong way,” said Linsen uncomfortably, “but you’ve always given the impression that work itself is your life. Securing contracts, growing the Boss’s business, tracking down buyers for Neon’s collection…you hardly seemed to care about anything else. You hardly seem to have anything else.”

“It’s a little different now. Things change.”

“You’ve changed.”

“And so?”

“It’s nothing bad. Actually, it’s nice that you take time for yourself nowadays. It’s good for you in the long run, right? You deserve a vacation.”

“I’m glad you think that, since I’m taking all of December off this year, too.”

“What? What for?”

“I have a personal obligation.”

“But an entire month?”

“It’s something I’ve put off for far very long. A single month barely covers it. So, we’ll have to hurry to replace your substitute, since you’ll be managing things for me while I’m away. Are you ready?”

“I’m always ready. A month is nothing compared to the missions you’ve gone on in the past. I’ll make sure everything runs smoothly.”

“I trust you will. I know I can rely on you.”

Kurapika took up a neglected glass of water an attendant had poured him from the corner of the table and stood. He left it on the tray by the door and motioned for Linsen to do the same with the glass that had been poured for his substitute at the start of the meeting. Stifling a yawn, Linsen snatched the glass up and pushed the chair back to its original place with his knees. He followed Kurapika out of the office after stopping by the intercom to order housekeeping in to tidy the room after them.

“You know,” said Linsen as he and Kurapika continued side-by-side down the long halls of the manor they’d once to patrolled day in and day out together as guards for Neon Nostrade, “I never realized you celebrated Christmas. You were always working. Of course, you always worked on every holiday, no exceptions. But, I never suspected that one day Christmas would be something you’d take a whole month off for.”

“It’s not for myself,” said Kurapika. “It’s an obligation I have to some people I know.”

“Those people you know must be awfully persuasive.”

“They are.”

The two of them arrived to an elevator at the end of the hall, and Linsen reached out to press the button to go down. “Will you be doing a lot of traveling, then?” he asked as they waited for the elevator car to arrive.

“I do not wish to divulge the details of how I’m going to spend my vacation,” said Kurapika. “I’m going back to Zhiscay after I’m done here, of course. That’s common knowledge. But, come December, what I do and where I go is my own business.”

“Are you sure you can handle being away for so long?”

“What do you mean by whether I can ‘handle’ it?”

“What I mean is you’re so dedicated, to the point of seeming compulsive, really, about working. I’ve never known you to take a single vacation, not even a weekend. You only ever take a break from one job so that you can focus on another job. It’s never to focus on your own things. I can’t help but harbor a suspicion that in December you’ll be setting the groundwork for some new enterprise you aren’t prepared to share with the family yet.”

“I swear I won’t be working,” said Kurapika. “If you’re waiting for me to show up in January with plans for a new venture of some sort, you’re going to be disappointed.”

The elevator dinged its arrival, and the inside door rumbled open. Linsen slid aside the outer metal gate and motioned Kurapika through before joining him inside and pressing the buttons for both their floors.

“It’s just—well,” continued Linsen, “I can’t imagine you simply…I don’t know, marathoning holiday films on the sofa, unwrapping heaps of presents on Christmas morning, or just relaxing in cozy Christmas-themed knitwear by a fireplace.” Linsen leaned back and looked Kurapika over in the narrow space of the elevator car, as though struggling to make one final, futile effort to imagine all these things and failing. “It’s impossible to picture you relaxing on the beach like a normal person in summer, or even in your own apartment at the end of the day. What are you even going to do with yourself for a whole month?”

Kurapika sighed.

“To be honest, I have absolutely no idea,” he said. Linsen made a doubtful face. “The most I’m hoping for is that I can spend some quality time with people who are important to me. That’s all I can really hope for. If I’m bored or restless or tired of being on vacation after a day, that’s my own problem, not theirs. I’ll simply endure it, no matter what. If it’s important to them, then, it’s important to me, and I will make sure that nothing about the holiday is ruined on my own selfish account." He paused. "Still, I don’t think there will be a problem, though. Everything should go smoothly.”

“Ah, I see,” said Linsen with a knowing nod. “So, you’ve never spent the holidays with friends and family before, have you?”

At that moment, the elevator arrived to Kurapika’s floor, but instead of stepping out right away and continuing on to his room, he held the door and looked back at Linsen.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, the funny thing about the holidays, especially Christmas where friends and family come together, is that no matter how good your intentions are going in, inevitably, something always goes wrong. There are far too many factors involved. You can never control them all.”

“I can control myself at least,” said Kurapika.

“Maybe you can,” said Linsen. “For a while.”

“It’s just a simple holiday.”

“You’d think so, but with so many people and so many expectations all piled up on each other. Well, inevitably, things go wrong. The real test is how you handle each catastrophe as it arises…or how you don’t handle it.”

Kurapika frowned and shook his head as he stepped through the elevators doors and out into the hall. “I have zero expectations,” he told Linsen. “So for me it means that nothing can go wrong.”

“Yeah,” said Linsen. “And I thought when I ordered the passcode device re-installed on Neon’s private elevator, it’d be done as I’d asked. There’s always something waiting to undermine you when you least expect it, no matter what time of year it is. Then, you're up all night looking for Nen across five floors with no-one to help you to make the job easier.”

As the door of the elevator began to slide shut, Kurapika stood torn, unsure if he should either ask Linsen for advice, accuse him of being more pessimistic than he was being honest, or just remind him sternly that he shouldn’t underestimate someone like Kurapika in a crisis. Before he could make a decision on what to say, however, the phone vibrating in his pocket made the choice for him. The elevator door finished closing without Kurapika saying a word. Taking out his phone, he looked down and noticed a missed call from Gon.

Kurapika swore under his breath. He was running late. There was something else about the trip to Whale Island Gon needed to tell him, some new development Gon thought would be faster to go over on the phone. With a long sigh, Kurapika swiped to call Gon back and continued down the hall to his room.

“Hey Kurapika! That was quick. You got right back.”

“I’m entering my room now. Give me a minute to take off my shoes and stuff. It’s late and I’m done for the day. I’m just running a little later than expected. There was a meeting.”

“Okay. Take your time and call back when you’re done, ok? I’m right by the phone. I won’t miss it.”

“Huh. Really? Must really be a big deal then,” said Kurapika as he knelt to untie his shoe laces. He reached for a shoehorn to slip them off.

“Sort of, yeah,” said Gon, sounding embarrassed. “There’s sort of been a change in plans. It’s kind of big. Just call me back, though, okay?”

“Sure,” said Kurapika. “Fifteen minutes.”

“Got it,” said Gon. “See you.”

“Talk to you soon,” said Kurapika. He hung up the phone as he stood up. After loosening his tie and setting the phone on side table, he headed to the restroom finish changing out go his work clothes. Ten minutes later, he called Gon back, and promptly encountered the first crisis of Christmas he'd been doomed to face.


	13. Christmas Market

Leorio’s pacing feet had picked up enough speed to carry him right out the door and down to the street by now. Kurapika shrugged on a coat and hurried after, expressing doubt that whatever reason Leorio had to visit a Christmas market at the last minute would pay off when Alluka would be arriving in a mere forty-eight hours.

“It’ll still be open when she gets here, which means if there’s anything interesting, we can take her to see it,” explained Leorio as he lead the way deep into a part of the city Kurapika had never visited while running errands. “Even if it is just a bunch of boring shopping stalls, she’ll probably like it, because it’ll be new. These markets are always better when they’re new to you. Once you’ve gone to one, though, they’re all sort of the same.”

“You’re really selling the experience,” said Kurapika. “I can’t wait to get there and witness something that will only ever appeal to me once in my entire life, and from then on will become nothing but a bore.”

“Well, it might not all be as boring as I remember,” said Leorio, though he lacked any real confidence that this would be the case. “To be honest, I don’t know what’ll be there. I haven’t been to one of these in years. I sort of just walk around them every year without stopping to look, but who knows? They might’ve added attractions.”

Kurapika pulled his scarf up over his nose without a word as they turned the corner, crashing directly into a strong current of cold wind that ended the conversation. The streets grew narrower and less pedestrian friendly as they made their way to the historic center of the city. Leorio assured Kurapika that here was where markets proliferated, Christmas themed or not, all days of the week.

“Is that how you learned to haggle?” asked Kurapika, intrigued. “All those markets?”

“More or less,” said Leorio. “Not the holiday ones, though. It’s all crafts and seasonal stuff. It’s too expensive, even after you talk the price down.”

“Why?”

“Because these crafts and stuff always cost a lot. Pretty much everything nice that isn’t necessary for daily life costs more. Growing up, I couldn’t really afford to buy anything that I couldn’t use.”

“You can probably afford it all now."

“Yeah, but it’s too late now. Now, I don’t even like Christmas. So like, moot point.”

The number of groups, especially families, walking up and down the narrow cobblestone streets increased as Leorio and Kurapika drew closer to the city’s largest and oldest market. Leorio provided a few unasked for history lessons about the common square where the market was held, since he knew Kurapika sort of liked those kinds of things. They turned a corner, and the stands of the market, each and every one an identical hut of red wood, came into view. Leorio said in late spring and summer the square was full of chairs from the cafes encircling it, but during Christmas and once a month on Sunday, some sort of market dominated the space instead.

In the fading light of late afternoon, the market glowed like a tiny village set up in the heart of the city. Light poured out from entrances into its grid of pathways, allowing glimpses of the colorful, festive wares within. Entering the avenues between the stalls was like entering into an alleyway of a whole other city brightly lit by strings of lights and yellow lamps. Kurapika found it familiar, since it wasn't the first market he'd ever been to, but at the same time, something about it was obviously more whimsical. He’d never seen such a large variety of Christmas items gathered in one place. It was as if he’d stepped into a child’s dream of the holiday itself, although he supposed in a child’s dream there’d be nothing as troublesome as money keeping everything he saw and wished for out of reach.

“It’s a lot of the same stuff over and over,” said Leorio, towering over the crowd and looking on ahead. “Of course, that’s not a surprise. There are only so many things people need this time of year. I’m sorry it's not much to see. It’s all pretty much the same as I remember, too. Maybe there’s more food stands than before. I can't tell.”

Kurapika was hardly listening, distracted by storefront after storefront dawning on him in rapid succession like new days. It was disorienting trying to look around but also keep up with Leorio’s quick, impatient pace. He had to turn away from the stalls and watch Leorio’s shoulders instead, in order not to lose him in the crowd. Leorio might’ve stood out for being taller than most of the people around them, but Kurapika was closer to average height and could lose sight of him in a crowd of heads and shoulders and thickly stacked winter layers blurring the throngs of people all into a single, impenetrable mass.

“I’ll radiate some extra aura so you don’t lose track of me,” said Leorio after noticing Kurapika falling behind despite his best efforts to keep Leorio in sight. “Just use your En.”

This actually worked. Kurapika ceased trying to keep an eye on Leorio and let him explore on ahead while he hung back to linger at the stalls. Leorio had been right about the repetativenss. Evergreens, baubles, crafts, and nativity figurines abounded. The universal red, yellow and green color scheme made the individual stalls difficult to tell apart as the items for sale grew more monotonous. Kurapika soon understood how the novelty of visiting the market could wear off year after year, but at the same time, he was fascinated by the stalls that primarily sold the tiny, doll-sized buildings and furnishings he’d read were used to create village displays illustrating the origin story of Christmas. As he progressed through the market, he realized these sorts of stalls were actually in the majority, leaving him to wonder, confused, how anyone hoping to buy anything ever managed to decide between them.

He caught up with Leorio once again towards the center of the market, where a long, low stage had been set up. Atop the stage was a model of an old, countryside town and its surrounding landscape, all constructed of the same sorts of doll-sized figures being sold throughout the market. The primary difference here was that, amidst the mills, barns, and homesteads, there also stood incongruous models of local monuments. A river cutting across the scene flowed with real, babbling water over small pebbles, while in the distance, papier-mâché mountains rose up and then gave way to a long, sandy desert ruled over by a dark, foreboding fortress. Of the characters dwelling in and around the countryside town itself, very little was to scale with its surroundings. A man leading a donkey stood five times too large to ever enter the replica of the famous city cathedral he was passing, while farmers working in the fields just off the road were hardly the size of Kurapika’s thumb and could’ve ridden a flock of sheep near the foot of the mountains as if they were horses.

“Imagine setting this up in your foyer,” said Leorio, startling Kurapika as he appeared directly behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He motioned across the display dramatically. “You couldn’t even fit this in my whole apartment.”

“Why are you using Zetsu and sneaking up on me?” asked Kurapika, shrugging Leorio's hand off. “I could’ve hit you if you hadn't started speaking. I would’ve interpreted it as an attack by a stranger. A Nen using stranger, too, which is would be even worse.”

Leorio’s aura instantly returned. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it.”

“How can you not realize it? It’s a conscious decision to enter Zetsu,” chided Kurapika. “Unless, of course, you felt threatened or were stalking something and instinctively concealed your presence. But what could you possibly have been hiding fro—”

Kurapika stopped guessing as soon as his eyes fell on a familiar group of people across the dollhouse-sized village. He didn’t know the name of a single one of them, but recognized a handful of their faces from the Christmas party only a few days before.

“You’re hiding from your friends, aren’t you?” asked Kurapika, unimpressed. “Leorio, they can’t even sense Nen.”

“It was automatic,” said Leorio. “All I knew was I had to get away, and so I guess the Zetsu just kicked in as part of my fight or flight response or something like that.”

“Do you want to leave, then, before they catch sight of you out and about enjoying the market?” asked Kurapika. “Your holiday-hating reputation is in jeopardy here, Leorio. Oh no.”

“Shut up, Kurapika. I don’t actually care if they see me.”

“And yet you saw them and immediately concealed your entire presence.”

“I told you it was a knee-jerk reaction.”

“I’d say it was an honest reaction.”

“I also told you to shut up.”

Leorio’s friends, meanwhile, were making their way around the village display with the rest of the rotating crowd. Leorio glanced over to them several times as they got closer, shifting his weight with growing unease the longer Kurapika gave no indication of moving on from where they stood.

“Want to go check out some sweets for Alluka?” asked Kurapika at last. He grinned when Leorio agreed and then suggested an aisle immediately in the opposite direction of the village display. “The flight response prevails,” Kurapika muttered softly to himself, chuckling, but claimed he hadn’t said anything when Leorio demanded to know what he was whispering about.

“You had to have realized you’d likely run into people you knew here,” chided Kurapika once he and Leorio had finished looking at as many cookies, candies, and cakes as they could find, but ultimately buying nothing. Now, they were outside the market, in a corner of the square. Kurapika leaned against a bollard as Leorio checked his phone.

“It was a possibility,” admitted Leorio, “but not a guarantee.”

“What would’ve been so bad about you running into them?”

“Nothing _bad_. It’s just a hassle. I wouldn’t hear the end of it if they saw me."

"Enough of a hassle to instantly enter Zetsu?"

"Maybe not, but still. People here don’t let it go when they see something that they think is hilarious or worth talking about. It’s irritating, all the gossip that goes around, people always joking with me about how they’re going to have to find me a girlfriend or something before December if they want me to celebrate Christmas with them. If they see me now, then for every year from now on, they won’t forget it, and I’ll have to endure it over and over and over. You don’t know because you don’t live here, but people always remember the stupid things the best.”

“Aren’t they already going to be that way anyway since Xo already kind of…?”

“Not really.”

“Didn’t someone see you out Christmas shopping already?”

“Yeah, but being seen shopping isn’t enough to prove I’m actually getting into Christmas this year. They can say what they want, but unless someone comes over and sees my apartment, they can’t prove I was buying anything for myself. They might joke about it now, but what they have isn't enough to build a lasting bullshit story around.”

“But if they see you here, then it will somehow be enough to never let you live it down?”

“…Maybe.”

“But then how are we supposed to go out and do anything with Alluka and Killua and Gon?" demanded Kurapika. "Are you just going to hole yourself up in your apartment?” He crossed his arms and let out a small huff. "And to think, you were accusing me of wanting to do exactly that when I arrived. Really. It looks like people always criticize others for the selfish stuff they themselves would do if they had the chance."

“No, no, I won't be holed up at home, actually. I’ll be at work. I’m working tomorrow and on Christmas Eve. Remember the calendar?”

Kurapika frowned as he uncrossed his arms. “You didn’t get out of it?” he asked. Leorio shrugged.

“How could I? Gon changed our plans at the last minute. Scheduling time off is something you have to do weeks in advance, especially for a major holiday. That's part of the reason why he wanted to come here, because I wouldn't have been able to leave anyway.”

“So, you mean everything’s up to me when they're here? The person who’s culture doesn’t even have a Christmas? I have to play host to everyone?”

Leorio took a deep breath as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. Kurapika was glowering at him. He raised a hand defensively and shook his head.

“Look. When I’m not working, I’ll do whatever you all want to do, I promise,” he said. “If you all want to go see lights at ten o’clock at night when I’m off work? We go. I’ll meet you there on my way back home. If for some reason Alluka wants to see the market at eight in the morning before my shift starts at eleven? We go. I’ll just get ready for work beforehand so I can leave from the market. I promise I’m not going to hole myself up in my apartment on purpose, but it’s going to be a hassle for you guys trying to match my schedule every day. Just do what you want. I’ll catch up when I can.”

“And what if people see you?” asked Kurapika, leaning in as he spoke with an air of challenge. “You’ll what? Enter a state of Zetsu and hope it cancels out all their short-term memories? Is that some new Hatsu you’re working on?”

“Damn it,” said Leorio, not backing down. “There’s a difference between me walking around the city to see the lights with you and three teenagers, and me walking around with only you. With the kids, it’s clear I’m being compelled to go out. With you, it looks more like a choice.”

“What kind of choice?” asked Kurapika menacingly.

“Eh, well….”

Kurapika rolled his eyes. “You said Xo jumped to conclusions. Apparently it’s everyone, or else you’re paranoid. I didn’t think you were such a wimp. You embarrassed yourself talking about jacking off in front of the entire Hunter Association back when Gon was in the hospital, but _now_ you’re suddenly concerned with what people say about you?”

“It’s not that. I just don’t want to deal with nosey people, everyone assuming, all of them bothering me.”

“How are you so absolutely confident that they will?”

“Because…a similar thing happened a few years ago, like, I tried to go through with all the Christmas stuff because they were really into it. So, if it looks like that’s really happening again, people I know are automatically going to see it as a trend with me, and I’m never going to live it down.”

“I’m just some random guy, though? Like yeah, I’ve been told I look sharp in a suit, sure, but no-one’s automatically pairing me off with everyone I’m friends with. The people you know sound pathetic, if that’s the case. You just have stupid friends. In fact, I'd hesitate to even call them friends at this rate.”

“They aren’t that bad, but they’re curious all the time. It could be my own fault, I don't know. I don’t tell people I’m a certified Hunter at school, and, since I got my license, I’m not as forthcoming with my old friends as I used to be about my private life, where I disappear to suddenly, if I'm going out with anyone, that kind of stuff. It's not on purpose. I just care a lot about school, so, there isn’t even much to talk about on other fronts. But like I said, some are more curious now. And suspicious.”

“So they’re immediately going to assume you’re involved with a random guy none of them knew existed until a few weeks ago? That if you don’t have a private life to chat about at work or between classes, you’re obviously hiding a terrible secret? Well. I don’t know if that’s common in this country, but in my opinion, that’s a fairly extreme thing to just make up about someone.”

“No, you see, the ones who’ve known me longer…they have a reason to suspect I might do something like that. I'm sorry.”

“What?”

“Look. Listen. It’s not really any of your business," said Leorio as he glanced back toward the market that was still in sight and scanned the nearby crowd for familiar faces. "We should go. Standing around like this is counterproductive, and arguing will just attract attention.”

“You can't just decide to end our conversation all on your own. I’m—”

“I’d feel a lot more at ease if we got a move on, Kurapika. Please.”

The will to insist on staying put and arguing almost drove Kurapika, in all of his obstinance, to remain in place as Leorio turned to go. The tone of Leorio when asking him “please”, however, undid his resolve. As if no longer under his control, his feet began to move, bearing him off in Leorio’s wake, back towards the apartment. He paid attention and looked for people they'd need to avoid, for Leorio’s sake, though he didn't doubt Leorio was keeping a much better eyed out than he was.

Leorio’s pace didn't relax until they arrived to the end of the residential street where he lived. He finally slowed enough to easily resume his and Kurapika’s previous conversation, but Kurapika, after several long minutes of quiet reflection while hurrying behind Leorio, wasn’t sure he wanted to dive back in. Leorio had said it (whatever "it" was) wasn’t his business, and Kurapika was cool-headed enough by now to respect that. Therefore, instead of talking, he leisurely took out his phone as a distraction so Leorio would feel the need to fill and awkward silence.

“Ah, Gon sent a message,” said Kurapika, clicking to open it. Leorio almost left him behind a moment later when he stopped dead in his tracks, frowning down at the screen as though it were written in a language he only partly understood.

“What’s up?” asked Leorio as he stopped and spun back around in a single movement. When he saw Kurapika’s expression, he froze. “What happened?” he asked instead.

“His aunt sent a message,” said Kurapika. “She convinced Gon to have Alluka and Killua stay on Whale Island as originally planned. She’s sorry it’s last minute, but she can’t wait to have the whole house full for Christmas.”

“So….”

“So, basically they aren’t coming here?”

In a flash, Leorio's face transformed into an expressionless mask.

“…Well, that’s…terrific,” said Leorio. He made a swift about face and continued on once more in the direction of his apartment. “Terrific,” he repeated over and over as he and Kurapika walked the rest of the way down the street. “Just terrific. How nice to get exactly what you always wanted a month after it can do you any good. Merry Christmas. It's a Christmas miracle.”


	14. Make the Season Bright

It was the third time he’d called Gon directly after work to argue the exact same points over again that week. Ever since Gon told him he wanted to move Christmas to Leorio’s, Kurapika had made it absolutely clear he was against it and prepared to cancel his involvement in the entire holiday celebration if necessary in order to drive that point home.

“Alluka might enjoy a family environment more than a bunch of friends crashing at Leorio’s bachelor pad, Gon. Consider that.”

“Alluka will have fun no matter where she goes,” said Gon, who was eating something and only partly listening, since by now he knew all the arguments Kurapika would make by heart. “We’ll all have fun no matter where we are. We’ll all be together.”

“You’re just acting selfish,” said Kurapika. “You found out you could use Christmas as an excuse to leave Whale Island for a little while, and now you’re forcing me to spend my entire month off with Leorio in the city. I see through it, I see what you’re doing, and I refuse to comply. I’m going to Whale Island next week, and you’ll just have to put up with it. If you can’t, then I’ll come back here to Zhiscay and go back to work.”

“But you agreed to take the month off.”

“I agreed to go to Whale Island.”

“But, it’s the same, isn’t it? Here or with Leorio?”

“No. Leorio lives in the city. I don’t want to spend fours weeks vacationing in a city. If I take a vacation, I want it to be a real vacation someplace quiet.”

“Whale Island is super loud with ships and ocean and all the birds. It’s really busy. There’s a whole town.”

“It’s nothing like a city, Gon.”

“There’s still loads of people around.”

“I don’t mind if there’s people. If I wanted to be left totally alone for a month, I’d camp out on top of the World Tree or move out to the middle of the Gordeau Desert. I was hoping to visit Whale Island, however, not enter seclusion. I don’t get the chance to visit many islands.”

“Next year you can definitely come here.”

“Next year you’ll change your mind at the last minute all over again.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“, No, listen. I can visit Whale Island first, and then together we can go to stay with Leorio when it’s closer to Christmas. That way, my vacation won’t be totally ruined.”

“But I’m going to be doing schoolwork the whole time you’re here. My aunt only gave me permission to travel with Killua until New Years if I could get ahead on schoolwork first. She promised. Otherwise I’ll have to come home on the 27th, and I won’t have time to go anywhere.”

“You can do schoolwork while I explore the island by myself.”

“But I want to explore with you and show you the best parts.”

“Then you’re going to have to make a choice, Gon.”

On the other end, Gon started to rummage around for something in a cabinet near the phone. There was flutter of smooth pages being flipped through quickly, and then he was back.

“There’s a holiday in summer you can visit during,” he suggested hopefully.

“I don’t know if I’ll be free. Christmas is easier to plan for.”

“You can travel around with me and Killua after Christmas.”

“I travel enough for work. I want to relax.”

“I’m sure you can relax at Leorio’s. He’ll let you sit around all day and do nothing if you want to. He’s really busy, so, you’ll have lots of time to relax by yourself.”

Kurapika sighed. Despite countless days of phone calls and countless repeated debates, there was still no getting through to Gon. “It’s not the same,” he insisted, somewhat more forcefully than he’d intended as his annoyance blossomed into outright exasperation. “Do you understand? Can't you see? A city isn’t the same. The air isn’t peaceful. You can’t see the stars. Even when it’s quiet, it all feels loud.”

Gon made a thoughtful sound, perhaps agreeing, but didn’t say anything. Kurapika wondered what Gon’s next strategy would be, what there could possibly be left to scrape up from the bottom of the barrel of suggestions and persuasive arguments a person could dream up.

“There’s another reason why Killua and I want you to go to stay with Leorio,” said Gon at last. His voice was louder suddenly, though he’d lowered it. Apparently he was holding the end of the phone in his cupped hand so that no-one in the house would overhear.

Kurapika was only moderately intrigued by all this secrecy. “Yes?” he asked, going along.

“You have to promise not to tell Leorio.”

“I won’t.”

“Are you sure? You’re really bad at hiding things from him.”

“I’m good at hiding things from him.”

“No, you aren’t. Avoiding him and never giving him a reliable way to contact you is the exact opposite of being good at hiding things from him. You’re always in trouble the second he asks you to tell him the truth.”

“Well, I’m…it’s that….”

“You can’t even lie to me, Kurapika.”

“Fine,” said Kurapika. The pen he’d been tapping against his knee impatiently throughout the call ceased jiggling. Agitated, he uncrossed his legs and sat forward sharply. His foot, which had fallen asleep, prickled with pain that only aggravated him further.

“So, what’s the big secret I can’t keep?” asked Kurapika. “Am I even allowed to know? Or is the risk too high that I’ll become a liability, because I apparently can’t lie to my friends?”

“I’ll tell you, don't worry,” said Gon, his tone almost insultingly reassuring. “Killua thinks you’ll give us away in a week if you know, but I’m not so sure. Also, I think that now, if I tell you, you’ll agree to go to stay with Leorio instead of coming to Whale Island.”

“Thanks for believing in me, Gon. What’s the secret?”

“We want you to stay with Leorio until Christmas as a gift for Leorio.”

“…A what?”

“He already told us he’s probably not going to be able to go anywhere on Christmas because of work and school.”

“I already know that.”

“And Killua and Alluka, especially Alluka, thought it was kind of sad that he’d be alone, so we decided to visit him on Christmas instead of staying here.”

“I know that as well.”

“But, then it was also really sad that he won’t be able to really enjoy the holiday working so much, so, we wanted to give him a really great gift, at the very least, to kind of make up for it.”

“So, me. You’re giving him me and my precious time.”

“Well, you’re the most available, since you already agreed to take a month off work to come to Whale Island. Basically, we don’t want Leorio to be lonely by himself as much as he usually is. Someone has to stay with him. But, he’s busy, and you’re less stressful to have around than both Alluka and Killua at once.”

“He’s not that lonely, Gon. He has friends. He’s a gregarious guy.”

“It’s not the same. You, me, and Killua and Alluka, we’re different from normal friends. More like best friends, or family. He’s lonely without all of us around.”

“If he’s lonely for that, he expects it, and he can handle it. He’s pursuing his dream studying at university.”

“That’s why this would be a gift, someone visiting him for a month, and not like, I dunno, Killua and Alluka moving in with him for ages instead. It’s a gift because it’s only a month. And plus, you’re the person he least gets to talk to out of all of us.”

“I don’t see why I can’t just call him up once a week when I’m on Whale Island. It’s virtually the same thing.”

“That’s not very special. He calls us all the time.”

“But, it’s me. I’ll be answering his calls eighty-percent more than usual that way.”

“No, Kurapika. It’s a better gift if you’re actually there. You can also help him get ready, which will be a gift for everyone.”

“That doesn’t sound in any way as appealing as exploring the woods on Whale Island for a month.”

“Please. Don’t be selfish at Christmas, Kurapika. Christmas is about giving.”

“But what do I get out this?”

“The satisfaction of making the holiday’s bright.”

“…It’s hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic over the phone, Gon. I think you’ve been spending a little too much time around Killua.”

“I’m serious. This is the best gift for Leorio. Killua and Alluka and I decided it all by ourselves. We had a big meeting over the phone and everything. It took days to come up with.”

“But you never considered if I’d agree to stay at Leorio's for a month?”

“I said you would if we told you the real reason. I said you’d do everything possible to make sure Leorio had the perfect Christmas. It’s only a month, after all. You can definitely afford to give him a month.”

Kurapika sighed and lowered the phone from his ear. “Give me a few minutes,” he said and put the phone down on the desk. The distant sounds of Gon resuming his meal faded out of earshot as Kurapika stood and walked away for a minute to think.

He didn't paced for long. The view outside the large window facing out to the harbor of Zhiscay Bay distracted him and pulled him towards it. In the cold light reflecting off the accumulation of late November snow, he made out the first line of rows of yachts anchored close to shore. The night was clear, deceptively tranquil, but he knew that beyond the window the air was frigidly cold. A gusty wind rose up from the water and cut into the city, probing with cold fingers through every layer of clothing one could possibly to wear and chilling a person walking through it to the bone.

High up in his condo overlooking the street and the bay, he watched a small groups of pedestrians struggle to advance through the harsh wind. He couldn’t imagine anything that could compel him to go down there toandsuffer himself. And yet, despite the cold night the nearest casino entrance a few blocks away bustled with activity and the passing gleams of sports cars rolling up and swapping out their boisterous, high-rolling passengers for stoic-faced valets. Kurapika gritted his teeth, thinking about the month ahead, about heading over to the casino daily for work every day, the same as ever. Now that he’d spent so long expecting to take a vacation in December, it was hard to truly convince himself to back out, to carry on as he always did, year in and year out, never taking advantage of a single holiday for rest and relaxation like virtually everyone else. It wasn’t as if a lot of work ever got done around Christmas anyway. Too many people who mattered were out of town. All Kurapika would end up doing would be managing the rush, keeping ahead of the never-ending flow of guests to ensure their Christmas in the casino was a tremendous success they'd come back for at the soonest opportunity.

Perhaps it would be better this year to expend that same tireless effort to create an ideal Christmas with his friends. At least there might be a little more reward in that for him.

“So, what do you think?” asked Gon after he heard the rustle of Kurapika taking the phone back up. It was quiet on his end. He’d finished eating in the time Kurapika had been gone.

“I’ll go,” said Kurapika. “Being alone in a city during the holidays isn’t fun. It’s cold and miserable, and lots of places close or get so crowded you don’t even want to go out. I guess Leorio will be suffering by himself, too, so...I guess it’s fine. I guess I’ll go suffer with him.”

“You sound like a Christmas martyr,” said Killua. “You need to relax.”

Kurapika narrowed his eyes as he heard Gon laugh nervously on the other end.

“Sorry, Kurapika,” said Gon, not even sorry, “I added Killua to the call to prove I was right, and you’d definitely agree to go if we told you it was a gift for Leorio.”

“You better not tell Leorio why you’re actually there,” warned Killua, who wasn't laughing along with Gon. “I still don’t believe you can keep it a secret, and it needs to be a surprise, okay? If we tell him right away, he’ll be awkward the whole time you’re there and won’t enjoy it. You know?”

“I won’t tell him,” said Kurapika. “I promise. Trust me.”

“I trust you’ll try,” said Killua. “But honestly?” he added with a disbelieving tsk. “I doubt you’ll last a week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm deeply sorry this fic has been going on so long by now. It was supposed to be done by January 6th and yet...here we are. Still. Here I am forcing you to read all about Christmas, and it's January 17th. I have no excuse.
> 
> (I actually do have an excuse, because I've been super busy and can't even put aside the few hours needed to finish this fic. I'm dead on tumblr right now, too. I'm dead all over. You can't find me; I've passed on.)


	15. Christmas Tree

“I’ll help you find a flight. If you leave tonight, you’ll arrive with time to spare and get to enjoy Christmas properly.”

Kurapika peeled off his coat and scarf at the door while Leorio strode straight across the room to his desk without even wiping his feet on the entryway mat. His laptop was open and online before he’d even pulled out the chair to sit down.

“I’m going to assume you can afford any ticket that exists, so I’ll just find what’s closest to when you want to go. What time do you want to try for?”

Kurapika finished hanging his coat and entered the apartment. The glittering tinsel on the walls, coolly illuminated by the blue light of the computer, stood out to him although he'd always glanced over them without second thought before. Now, it was the first thing he truly saw as he passed from the entryway into the main room.

“Actually, I’ll compile a list so that you have options,” continued Leorio after a flurry of typing and slower clicks of the touchpad. “It’s dark now, but not that late. I’ll see if there’s anything after ten. If you land in Riu City, there’s a 6am ferry you can catch. You’ll be on Whale Island in time for lunch, easy.”

Kurapika had disappeared from sight, startling Leorio when he glanced back to see what was taking him so long to speak up. Before Leorio could finish asking if he was in the bathroom, the holiday lights around the apartment came to life. A second later, Kurapika was crawling out from under the small table covering the corner wall socket where everything was plugged in. Leorio observed in baffled silence as Kurapika brushed himself off before crossing the room to the couch, where he lay down to observe his handiwork better.

“I’ve rarely had the opportunity see how all this really looks lit up at night,” said Kurapika. “I never took the time to appreciate it when I was testing it out. I was more focused on getting it all working properly. It’s not bad, though. Relaxing.”

“You want one last look at the lights before you leave?” asked Leorio, sound skeptical. “Don’t worry. There’s no rush. I’m not going to take down all these decorations right this instant, probably not even tonight. I’ll schedule your flight first, and then wait until you’re gone. You put a lot of work into decorating, so, I can’t just rip it all down in front of you--though it's not like I’m going to rip it down anyway. I’ll take it all down carefully. And then, I’ll mail everything to whatever address you feel like giving me. It’s yours, you know. I won’t need all this stuff after you’re gone.”

“I’m not going,” said Kurapika. He crossed his hands over his stomach, staring up at the ceiling as if counting the lights. “I can just relax here.”

“It’s dark out, but it’s not that late. We still have time if—”

“I’m not going anywhere," repeated Kurapika. "That’s all.”

Leorio grumbled and picked up this laptop from the desk, unplugging it as he pushed the chair back and stood. He carried the laptop with him over to the couch, and then nudged Kurapika to move his feet out of the way so he could take a seat. Reluctantly, Kurapika pulled himself up to a sitting position on the other end.

“Look? See?” said Leorio, holding the laptop up so Kurapika could read the screen. “There are a lot of flights to Riu City tonight. You can make it, easy.”

“But you can’t go, right?”

“I have work.”

“Then, I’m not going.”

Leorio rolled his eyes as he rested the laptop on his knees and refreshed the ticket page.

“Don’t be some kind of a martyr, Kurapika. Don’t just stick around here. You know I don’t even like Christmas, so, there’s no point in you ruining your entire holiday on my account. I don’t want you to do that.”

“I don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s the same to me, here or there. Nothing’s ruined.”

“Bullshit. You hate the city. You’ve wanted to go to Whale Island from the start. If not for Christmas, then at least go for your vacation.”

“It’s too late to get my vacation back. I’ll stay here.”

“That’s idiotic. You’re missing your chance.”

Kurapika slouched down deep in the seat, as though trying to bond himself to it so he’d be impossible to extricate by force. “Do you really want to be left alone?” he asked. “You’re going to act like that’s an easy thing?”

Leorio stammered a moment, the pitch of his voice rising as he answered. “I’m not thinking of me,” he insisted. “Obviously I’m thinking of you.”

“And I’m thinking of you, alone here, dismantling all this by yourself,” said Kurapika with a wave towards the decorations illuminating the room with light and and festive cheer. “You, sighing pathetically, feeling disappointed, because whenever things don’t go how you’ve been expecting them to, no matter how excited or not you were for those things in the first place, it’s always a disappointment after it’s all taken away.”

Leorio frowned and turned from Kurapika. “I’ll live,” he said, not looking over to either Kurapika or the computer, but somewhere else on the floor instead. “It’s not a big deal.”

“To me it is,” said Kurapika. Leorio made a sort of incredulous grunt in answer. “It's not all because of you, though. I worked hard to make Christmas happen in this apartment. I’m not going to give up and go to Whale Island, leaving all my hard work behind.”

“But Alluka and Killua and Gon are—”

“They don’t need me there,” said Kurapika. “They have a whole house and Gon’s family. They won’t need anything from us to enjoy the holiday. And anyway, me being there doesn’t make up for you not being there. It’s going to be incomplete no matter what, so, I might as well stay here with you so that you aren’t left out.”

“How much do I need to insist I don’t celebrate Christmas, so, you're not leaving me out of anything I wouldn't have been doing anyway?”

“It’s not for Christmas. It’s because you weren’t expecting to be alone this week, and so, you won’t be. It’s the least I can do. Consider it a gift.”

“You’re terrible at gifts. You’re not supposed to give people things that make them feel bad. That make them feel guilty.”

“If I remember correctly, in one of your over-the-top, anti-holiday tirades you told me that this entire holiday was about feeling guilty all the time. It's always imperfect because of the uneasy suspicion that deep down, if it weren’t the holidays, you’d never bother to put nearly as much effort into getting together with family and friends, and you wouldn’t be nearly as generous. Plus, you don’t even feel like you have to be that way the rest of the year, since Christmas is always right around the corner, a couple days scheduled in the calendar to apply the effort of giving a damn about people, all the while reassured that it’ll be reciprocated by those you strive to please, because everyone else around you is on the same holiday cycle. And so, with all of that in mind, I think this gift is right in line with the spirit of the season.”

Leorio snapped the laptop shut and stood up. He went to place it on the desk without a word.

“You win,” he said when he turned back to Kurapika. He held up his arms to all of the festive splendor surrounding them. “You’ve mastered Christmas. Congratulations. I can’t even stay mad, because I’m too fucking impressed with how much work you’ve put into getting this holiday right. Though, to be honest, getting into a big fight is a classic tradition in some families.”

“You can fight me every day of the year if you want, and I’ll always win. It’s wiser for you not to even try.”

“And yet you insist on tempting me like a sick game….”

Outside on the street a clatter arose, serendipitously interrupting the slow build into a futile argument brewing between Leorio and Kurapika. Leorio leaned towards the window and looked out, motioning for Kurapika to hit the light. Kurapika rolled his eyes and unplugged the cord, then joined Leorio peering through the blinds.

“It’s a couple trying to get a tree into their apartment,” said Leorio as he and Kurapika watched the struggle underway in the street below. “They bought a real tree. That’s gonna be tough for them to get inside. It's all one big piece.”

“Are you planning to run down there and help?”

“No. They’ll manage if they stop yelling at each other.”

“If they go on like that, the tree’s going to be bald by the time they get it inside.”

“Frankly, their Christmas was ruined the moment they decided to let whimsy take over and buy a real tree to put in an apartment,” said Leorio. He let the blinds slip shut and warned Kurapika to stop looking out as well as he went to plug the lights back in.

“We can finish decorating the tree we have here,” suggested Kurapika. “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”

“Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow, Kurapika.”

Kurapika groaned as he realized he’d got the date wrong yet again.

“We’ll put up the tree tomorrow,” said Leorio. “It’s easier in the daytime anyway.”

Kurapika was just beginning to agree when Leorio stopped, smacked his forehead with his hand, and swore. “Fuck, no. Actually, tomorrow we have to buy groceries. Remember? We were going to have Alluka decide what food and candy she wanted to eat. There’s almost nothing here.”

“True,” said Kurapika. “I guess it’s the tree now, then.”

“Some people wait until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree.”

“Yes, but I can't stand the dark hole of an empty tree in the corner of this room. Help me or not, but I'm decorating it as soon as possible."

It wasn't long before Kurapika had all the decorations for the tree out and open on the floor. He helped Leorio pull the tree away from the wall and asked where they should start decorating first. Though Kurapika had read that the star on top of the tree was a finishing touch, Leorio advised him to put it up before anything else so that its cord would be easier to conceal along the trunk. Thanks in large part to Leorio’s long arms and Kurapika on the other side keeping the spiraling lines straight, the hanging of lights and tinsel after was effort-free. In fact, Leorio’s overall build was ideal for decorating a Christmas tree, since he could reach the highest boughs automatically. Kurapika told him as much, and he smiled. At little embarrassed, he admitted he'd been told that before, so, it had to be true.

A new test of Kurapika and Leorio's patience with each other reared up when it was time for the ornaments. Neither could agree on the proper distribution, or on which baubles deserved the honor of being placed on the visible sides of the tree and which would should be shunned to the side facing the wall. Kurapika insisted they didn’t need to decorate the side near the wall at all, but Leorio argued that having full coverage added depth and a sense of completion. A minute later, he was besides himself when he noticed that Kurapika was primarily hanging ornaments on the ends of the branches and not within the tree itself. The lights on the tree, Leorio pointed out, would make the tree seem fuller if there were shinier baubles inside the tree to reflect them.

Without thinking, Leorio asked if Kurapika had ever decorated a tree before in his life. He then immediately snapped for Kurapika to shut up before Kurapika could remind him that no, actually, he hadn’t.

“I know you haven’t, stupid question. What I meant to say is, have you ever even _seen_ a tree, though?”

“Of course I’ve seen one.”

“Then hanging the ornaments should be more intuitive.”

x“I guess I didn’t inspect each and every tree close enough to realize the tremendous craftsmanship that went into sticking little toys and baubles all over it. Apparently it’s a Christmas Science you all study in Christmas Class during Christmas School in this country.”

“It’s not that hard. It’s common sense.”

To himself and not Leorio, never Leorio, Kurapika did have to admit that no books he'd read had ever told him how to decorate a tree in the proper manner. Drawing as little attention to it as possible, he began to follow Leorio’s advice. Leorio didn't seem to notice. Tree decoration was apparently so intuitive to him that he didn't even notice when Kurapika was doing it right. In another half hour, the tree was finished, and they were ready to add it onto the circuit of lights already going around the apartment.

“Okay, on the count of three, we’re going full Christmas in this place,” said Leorio, kneeling by the plug in the wall while Kurapika switched off the lamp that'd illuminated their tree decorating session. The apartment was thrown into darkness, with only the faintest outline of orange light coming in from between the blinds covering the window. As a joke, Leorio began to count down. He laughed a little when he heard Kurapika counting down with him.

“Three, two, one, Christmas!” said Leorio. He was impressed that Kurapika knew him well enough to have said the exact same thing instead of ending on “zero!” or “ta-da!” instead.

Kurapika clapped. It was almost slow enough to come off as condescending, but Leorio didn’t mind and clapped as well. He went to join Kurapika sitting on the floor along the opposite wall from the tree. In a gesture of camaraderie, he rested an arm over Kurapika’s shoulders and shook him energetically.

“There you go, Kurapika, full Christmas achieved,” he said. “How’s it feel for the first time in your life to be surrounded by so much holiday cheer?”

“I’ve been in a decorated house before. I worked in a yearly decorated mansion. In fact, I’ve been surrounded by lots more Christmas than this.”

“Okay, fine, but how’s it feel to be surrounded in all this Christmasness you created?”

Kurapika shrugged. “I guess it’s okay.”

Leorio wouldn't accept such an answer and shook Kurapika by the shoulders again, this time tsking and reprimanding him. “That’s not a real answer,” said Leorio. “Christmas is a sappy holiday, so, be as free as you want with how you feel.”

“It’s okay," said Kurapika, sincere if not overly excited. "That’s how I feel. It’s okay.”

“C’mon, Kurapika. You’ve read too many books to have such few words. I’m not letting you off the hook until you stop trying to sound all cool and tell me your warm, stupid feelings.”

“What the hell are _your_ warm, stupid feelings?” demanded Kurapika, making a face at Leorio. Leorio smirked, accepting the challenge.

“It’ll tell you, but you’re not allowed to copy what I say. So, if I come up with something really good, you can’t use it yourself, but will have to come up with your own thing. Going first is an advantage. Think twice before you give it to me.”

“Stop stalling and tell me your stupid whatever-it-is.”

“Okay. Fine. So,” said Leorio, sweeping his free arm across the view of the room before them. Kurapika look out, not sure at what, but obliging him. “This here is the most Christmasness my apartment had ever contained. And my first impression is that, frankly, I’m shocked so much Christmas even fit in here.”

“Do you mean the decorations?”

“Partly, yes. Also, the atmosphere is very Christmasy. All we need is presents on the floor, and we’ll be reaching full Christmas capacity, a max level of festive joy and tidings of goodwill the likes of which this dwelling has never known.”

“It’s just lights and tinsel hung up.”

“And you and me, making it happen. Got that warm, fuzzy sense of ownership over it, even if it’s not at all my favorite holiday. It’s a satisfying sense of accomplishment regardless. Look at everything we’ve made here. It’s ours. Teamwork. If I had a drink, I’d toast you with it.”

“But, haven't you thrown a full Christmas before with some ex of yours?” asked Kurapika. He hadn’t forgotten the conversation in the market about Leorio's Christmas past. He couldn’t forget it. The entire time they’d been decorating the tree, his mind had kept wandering back, imaging Leorio performing the same operation with countless faceless girlfriends every year he’d been dating someone when the holidays rolled around. Maybe they’d even taught him some of his his “common sense” tricks like hanging the metallic and glittery, but otherwise boring, baubles inside the tree to reflect more light so it'd twinkle every time he reached up re-adjust an incessantly lopsided star.

“That was probably a lot more Christmasy,” guessed Kurapika. “A real 'holiday love nest'. Leave it to you to shun an entire holiday unless there’s a girl involved.”

“It wasn't really a lot. No-one I’ve dated could ever have compelled me to reach such immense Christmas proportions as this,” said Leorio. He spoke lightly, but still scolding Kurapika for thinking any past observation of the holiday would’ve been nearly so extreme as this year. What Leorio was willing to do for Alluka, a sweet child with the most cheerful disposition he’d ever known, and what he was willing to do for a love interest were hardly comparable.

“I was studying for some tough exams at the time,” explained Leorio, leaning back into the wall and looking over the tree as he spoke. He paused occasionally to clarify a point or come up with a succinct way to express himself, since it was never a good sign to dwell too long on the past or layer in too many excuses for himself. “So, what happened was, my schedule was too erratic. If the time I was occasionally free was the time she was planning to hang lights, for example, I’d help her hang lights. If she was going to shop for a three foot tall Santa figure or something, I’d join her shopping for the Santa figure. I couldn’t make her change plans for me. That wouldn’t have been fair. Also, for your information, all the Christmas stuff was at her apartment, not mine. All I had was a little tree on my desk that she got me. I only ever plugged it in when she came over, but she didn’t come over too much. It’s really boring to watch another person study all day. It’s not like I could spontaneously go on a break just because she’d shown up. Anyway, the tree I brought to work the next year and set it up in the break room. Then, I acted like I didn’t know where it came from along with everyone else. By now, everyone just assumes it was always there, and it gets put away with all the holiday decorations every year and taken out again in December. This year we’ve got it by a window looking out to the street. And no-one knows it was mine, or that I turfed it out to the break room two years ago.”

“But what happened to the girlfriend?” asked Kurapika. “Doubtless you’re prouder of how you successfully foisted a tiny tree on your colleagues, but as for the girlfriend…. You seem to have been really considerate of her to go through with all the Christmas stuff.”

Leorio could only shrug. “What always happens,” he said like it ought to be self-evident. “After the holidays, I went from having very little time to no time at all, so, we split up.”

“Ah, right,” said Kurapika. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t that bad,” said Leorio, shaking Kurapika by his shoulders again, but softer. “I simply realized I don’t have the time or the lifestyle for a relationship. I would’ve realized it sooner if the holidays hadn’t given me the illusion of having the time. But, you know, that’s Christmas for you. Makes everyone a little delusional.”

Kurapika nodded and let out a long, deep breath he'd been holding, and looked away from the bright lights of the tree he'd been staring into. His vision swarmed with blinding, dark spots, and he shut his eyes. Leorio had been right about the staggered ornaments providing depth and interest, he supposed. He hadn't been able to stop searching between the branches for all the different baubles and wooden figures, exploring the tree’s decorations with keen interest, as if he hadn’t been one half of the party responsible for putting it all up. He heard rather than saw Leorio look over and chuckle at the sight of him squeezing his eyes shut.

“Have you ever seen that one movie about the Christmas cat?” asked Kurapika a little while later, once his vision had cleared.

“Never.”

“Is Christmas an especially romantic holiday?”

“Well, sure,” said Leorio. Somehow this far too quick affirmation surprised Kurapika. “It’s not Valentine’s Day," Leorio continued. "But like, it’s more romantic than Constitution Day or the First of May. Why? You into cheesy Christmas cat movies about elves falling in love? I've got to admit, I totally didn’t see that coming.”

“I know it by circumstance, not by choice.”

“You mean a girlfriend forced you to watch it.”

“No.”

“Hey, there’s no shame in that. I commend your sacrifice. I would do the same.”

“Stop sneering. It looks like you think spending time with someone is a huge sacrifice just because you think the movie they want to see is stupid,” said Kurapika. Leorio grumbled and stopped grinning. “Anyway, I work in security, remember?" asked Kurapika. "I’m exposed to my clients’ lives while protecting them. You’d be surprised how many intelligent people are into stupid movies or tv. It’s not really an indicator of how capable they are.”

“Okay. So, you saw ‘The Christmas Cat’ at work.”

“Pretty much.”

“And how did a sappy movie about elves talking to cats shape your budding understanding of Christmas and what the holiday means?”

“Not a bit,” said Kurapika. “I didn’t understand at all how a religious holiday devoted to a god’s birth was also a time of year to fall in love. If anything, I was left more confused.”

“Ah, okay. So, you see, it's not the holiday entirely. It’s the cold weather,” said Leorio with the exact same certainty in his voice as Senritsu had had years before. “And, it's the spending time at home a lot, and only seeing each other’s good and best sides for weeks on end.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“So, then, where’s the mystery in that? It’s a time of year when people are more inclined to draw closer together. Everything looks brighter and better. Spirits are high. Everyone’s hoping for the best. Then, it’s suddenly January and the spell ends and you go back to regular life and dump your girlfriend.”

“Or your boyfriend.”

“Or just me. I get dumped. I’ve been dumped twice in January after dating someone all through Christmas.”

“Too bad.”

“No, I get dumped a lot all times of the year. Don’t worry about it.”

“I wasn’t worried. I trust you’ve had a lot of practice. I'm just trying to commiserate. This is pity.”

“Thanks, Kurapika. That’s exactly I wanted for Christmas: Your pity.”

Kurapika shrugged and let slip a small, mischievous smile. Leorio shook him by the shoulders again and told him to watch out unless he wanted to test Leorio to the point of experiencing a true holiday scuffle. If that was the case, he should just tell Leorio now. He’d more than happily deliver. Merry damn Christmas. A fight was the gift Leorio could afford.

“The tally’s going to look like three times dumped in January by your friends’ estimation,” said Kurapika, still laughing at Leorio's misfortune, acting like it was all a joke. “Or well, at least by Xo and whoever Xo is close with.”

“I’m not worried. Even if I get a text later about me and you at the market, and my workmates’ group chat explodes with bullshit speculation, I’ll survive. I mean, I literally just put up a Christmas tree for no other reason than it was here and you wanted to put it up. Pretty sure my fight against the holiday is over for this year, and I lost.”

“Your other choice was to ruin what I guess is my first 'real' Christmas in a fit of selfishness and pull everything down.”

“That never would’ve happened. Christmas all you want here, make yourself at home. Although, I should let you know I didn't buy you any presents. Don’t expect a box under the tree to open at midnight. It’s too late now to buy anything good.”

“I haven’t got you anything, either.”

“I thought you said your presence itself was a gift?”

“Oh, right. And so then your gift was decorating the tree for me.”

“I never said—”

“Just let it be that and leave it. Take the easy out.”

“Fine, I will. But only because you insist,” said Leorio. He didn't bother to even put up even the semblance of a fight. At the same time, he glanced over at the clock on the desk, craning to the side in front of Kurapika to get a better look. The scratchy knit of his sweater sleeve brushed Kurapika’s cheek, warm, irritating, and much closer than Kurapika wished. Kurapika slouched lower and away from it uneasily.

“You should do me a favor and get some sleep,” said Leorio as he settled back against the wall. “I made a promise to myself to make sure you got an appropriate amount of sleep while over here on vacation, and I’m not backing down now just because it’s almost Christmas and we’ve got all these awesome lights up. It’s cozy as hell in here, and that's dangerous. You need to hurry and get into bed before you fall asleep against the wall and wake up cold with a crick in your neck.”

Kurapika yawned widely at the reminder and stretched his arms upwards, knocking Leorio’s draped arm off his shoulders. Without a thought, Leorio reached up and ruffled Kurapika's hair. Kurapika turned and reached with both hands to muss Leorio’s more carefully combed style in return, transforming it into a porcupine-esque mess that stood up in all directions. Leorio’s previously gentle hand on Kurapika’s head grew rougher until Kurapika’s long blond hair was knotted throughout and parted in three different places.

“It’s getting long,” said Leorio after a moment. He stopped to examine the strands between his fingers, lifting his hand up while holding them to get an idea of the full length. The corners of his mouth turned down as he nodded with silent appreciation, as if mildly impressed. When he was done, he let his hand drop and patted Kurapika on the head. “It doesn’t look like much, but it’s actually grown a lot since before.”

Since before when, neither Kurapika nor Leorio were sure. Kurapika reached up to forcibly untangle Leorio’s hand from his hair, but froze once he’d caught Leorio’s warm fingers between his own. He didn’t know why. On an impulse a second later, he shot forward and kissed Leorio, light and quick, on the lips. It was sort of childish, no better than Xo. He guessed a kiss was a natural result of the trial of thought that'd been running somewhere in the in back of his mind ever since the Christmas party a few days before. Or else, it’d been something on his mind ever since he'd been thinking back on having to play bodyguard to a cat in a romantic holiday film. 

If Kurapika were completely honest, though, he'd have to admit the impulse to kiss Leorio came from something that'd existed before Christmas had even entered the equation. The problem was that the holiday possessed a strange power to pull it out of him much quicker than years of avoiding Leorio and only seeing him for a few days at a time could ever have been able to.

Oddly, Kurapika didn’t really regret it, even as the kiss ended and the appropriate anxiety swelled in his chest. With the soft lights and the comfortable conversation, crossing the line of intimacy had seemed way too natural. In fact, maybe he’d been intending to kiss a cheek, but had missed at the last moment. He wasn’t sure. Either way, Leorio had met his impromptu kiss and allowed it to proceed. Leorio's instincts, of course, were far too good for it to truly have been stolen.

Leorio was readying himself to say something as he used the hand still holding onto Kurapika hair to gently push him back a little. In the end, he couldn't spit out even an infinitesimal fraction of what must’ve been going through his mind. Instead, he said, “Kurapika,” once quietly, and nothing after it. The tone was impossible to read.

“I’ll go to bed,” said Kurapika after clearing his throat. Leorio stared after him, dumbstruck at Kurapika’s seeming ease and utter lack of expression as he stood up and trudged to the bedroom door. “What time should I be up to go to get groceries with you tomorrow?”

Leorio shrugged and let out a long, slow breath of air. He didn't know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

“Nine?” he croaked, guessing.

“Okay, nine,” Kurapika repeated back. “Goodnight, Leorio.”

Leorio barely responded with his own murmured “goodnight”. Once more, he readied himself to say something, anything whatsoever, before the moment passed, but again nothing came out. By then, Kurapika had escaped the immediate ramifications of his impulsive decision by shutting the bedroom door between them. Leorio stared at it like he was trying to remember how to say "door" in another language, feeling it on the tip of his tongue, but failing to make the final, crucial connection.

"Shit," he whispered, and for now that was close enough.


	16. Perfect in Every Way

For what must've been hours, Leorio had been going on and on about little things that annoyed him about Christmas, all under the guise of telling Kurapika a "quick" list of things the two of them would have to prepare for in the upcoming weeks. He hadn't trusted that Kurapika truly understood the magnitude of the whole operation, and wanted to get a feel for how much Kurapika knew before they got started. His questions, however, had soon devolved into a mini-tirade about how much he wasn't looking forward to any of this. His earlier complaints about being too tired to talk much, as well as his suggestions that Kurapika should rest after his trip, had been forgotten due to his his overwhelming need to vent his tightly held feelings concerning the holiday.

Patiently, Kurapika had endured the long, predominately one-sided conversation until past midnight. He would’ve endured it even longer without a word if Leorio hadn’t noticed him nodding off and stopped abruptly.

“I’m sorry I got carried away,” he said, embarrassed. “You’ve just arrived here from Zhiscay. You must be beat. You look beat. I’m so sorry.”

Blearily, Kurapika nodded by letting his head fall once a little too far and then catching it with a jolt. He stopped after the one nod. If he tried again the rest of him might follow after, all the way down into an unconscious heap on the floor. As he straightened up, Gon’s voice on the phone replayed thinly in his mind. With renewed energy, he forced his eyes open wide, willing himself into alertness.

“You can still talk,” he said to Leorio. “I might just need coffee.”

“No, I’ll have weeks to talk your ear off,” said Leorio. He pushed off from the chest of drawers he’d been leaning against whenever he wasn’t pacing, too enthusiastic about deriding Christmas to sit still. “Go to bed. I completely lost track of the time. It gets dark so early now, so it always feels late no matter what time it is. I always sort of ignore how tired I feel, because otherwise I’d never get anything done after the sun goes down, but right now it’s actually late for real.”

“No, I’m fine,” said Kurapika. He tucked the boots he’d kicked off earlier, back when he’d thought the conversation would end in only a few minutes, under the end of the bed. He then pulled his feet up to sit with his legs crossed on top of the duvet. “I can stay up for days. I just might need a little tea or coffee. It’s fine. This seems like an important topic to you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Leorio as he knelt down to grab the boots Kurapika had just finished shoving out of sight. “It’s not that important. And anyway, I’m wasting my own time more than yours. You can sleep all day tomorrow if you want, but I have to get up early.”

Leorio took the boots with him to the door along with the coat Kurapika had deposited onto the back of a chair. Kurapika felt embarrassed by this, like a child whose mother had just swept through his room and automatically begun to tidy all the signs of careless disorder around him, even though he was an adult and supposedly didn’t need her to keep up with his mess anymore. Perhaps his feet didn’t belong on top of the blankets on the bed, either. Perhaps he should’ve washed his face and hands before making himself at home. It’d been a long time since he’d had to consider the rules of another person’s home. The impersonal staff rooms and hotel suites he’d shared with his coworkers before graduating to his own private accommodations as a lower boss in the Nostrade family hadn’t prepared him for something as ordinary as staying over at a friend's place.

While Leorio was gone hanging the coat and putting the boots on the shelf by the door, Kurapika got up and readied for bed. By the time Leorio was back, he was sitting under the covers with a pillow at his back, pretending to check his phone for emails, although in reality he was simply refreshing his inbox over and over, bored, because going straight to sleep seemed rude.

“I’ll probably be gone by the time you’re up,” said Leorio from the doorway. “I’ll leave a spare key on the table if you feel like going out. I’d say call me if you have some kind of emergency, but honestly, if it’s an emergency you can’t handle yourself, I’m not sure how I can help.”

“True,” said Kurapika. He switched his phone off and placed it on the bedside table. “Anyway, I shouldn’t need anything.”

“You hardly ever do,” agreed Leorio. He drummed on the doorframe as he turned away and wished Kurapika goodnight. Kurapika had every intention of echoing the sentiment back, but somehow the moment end up stretching out too far, and he couldn’t say anything. Before he knew it, Leorio was already gone. 

Leorio had pulled the door shut after him as he'd left, but even once it'd been fully closed, Kurapika could hear every sound on the other side. The space between the door and the hard floor flickered with shadowy movement as Leorio got ready for bed, sometimes sighing or murmuring to himself as he took off his slippers and leaned back, exhausted, into the creaking couch. He grumbled louder and got up a moment later, his retreating footsteps soon followed by the muffled sounds of washing up from the bathroom. Kurapika had almost drifted off to sleep by the time Leorio returned and took another creaking seat on the couch, his movements heavier and more careless this time, loud enough to pull Kurapika back to attention. There was a long, silent moment, broken once by a sleepy sniffle and then a yawn, indicating Leorio was checking his phone, maybe setting a new alarm now that he’d been up so late. Active movement, with all the accompanying creaking and thuds, resumed abruptly a few minutes later as the blanket on the sofa was unfurled, and Leorio switched off the lamp, throwing Kurapika's own dully illuminated room into true darkness at last. Without much tossing and turning, Leorio's breathing grew steadier and heavier. It was hardly five minutes before he was fast asleep.

Kurapika had stayed awake listening intently to most of this long process, matching each of the sounds to their coinciding actions as he followed along in his mind’s eye. The immense tiredness that had surged forward earlier and prevented him from so much as nodding his head had subsided and given way to restlessness. Suddenl,y there was so much to think about. He thought about Gon, the agreement he’d made to stay in the city with Leorio, and how accompanying Leorio through Christmas was intended to be a gift to him that money couldn’t buy. Killua had said Kurapika couldn’t keep a secret from Leorio for that long, that he wouldn’t last a week without ruining the whole plan. Killua, however, was absolutely wrong about that.

There was more Kurapika kept to himself than Killua knew or could possibly guess. There was a lot more Kurapika avoided by rarely answering the phone than risking telling Leorio where he was or what sort danger he was getting into there. Killua didn’t and couldn't know, and neither could Gon. Only Senritsu had guessed it, because she could read Kurapika’s heart and mind through subtler signs that Kurapika couldn’t consciously conceal. Fortunately, all she'd ever done about it was gently remind him to check his personal phone whenever she heard it ringing, neglected, in a bedroom drawer far away. Kurapika always assured her he would check after work and thanked her for telling him, and Senritsu in turn politely refrained from pointing out she could tell he was lying.

But now, here in Leorio's apartment, the usual distance was gone. There was no muted, deactivated, or blatantly ignored phone standing as a barrier between Kurapika and how much he wasn’t prepared to deal with Leorio most of the time. There was no escaping how it sometimes physically hurt to hear Leorio's voice, or any of his friends' voices, especially when they were concerned for Kurapika’s well-being. He knew he wasn’t going to make it the whole month like this if he didn’t insert a new barrier to replace the usual one, invent some other contrived form of distance, a distraction he could fall back on when things became difficult, and he needed to escape.

As he counted out the number of days he’d have to endure between now and Christmas, Kurapika remembered the promise he'd just made that evening to help Leorio prepare for their friends’ arrival at the end of the month. The whole concept of “Christmas” loomed up as well, vast and nebulous, something he could never pin down in a form he could say he understood. He compared the two mutually exclusive undertakings, that of helping Leorio out and hiding from Leorio. In his heart, however, he already knew which he'd choose.

A wave of calm washed over Kurapika as he made his choice, bringing back his former sleepiness and quieting his mind. Sparing no more time on wandering thoughts, he only listened without seeing, letting the rhythm of the soft snoring in the other room lull him gradually to sleep.

He’d create a perfect Christmas, then, a Christmas that demanded all his effort and concentration, and which would leave Alluka wanting for absolutely nothing. Leorio by himself was useless and would ruin everything if left to his own devices, so, this was something Kurapika would have to do on his own to get it done right. He wouldn't and couldn't fail, not only for himself, but for Alluka and Killua and Gon...and also for Leorio. His was grateful to have the opportunity to immerse himself in something, to learn and create and ensure everything went as excepted. He was good at such things, perhaps even an expert. The time would fly, and before he knew it, it'd be Christmas. It'd be over, and he'd have succeeded. Then, he could go back home. His would return to what was normal and comfortable and breath a sigh relief, because he'd kept his word and proven himself to himself, as well as to Killua or anyone else who might've doubted his resolve. 

What might've been vision of sugar plums danced in Kurapika's head as he was submerged into sleep. In his mind, these were literal plums sparkling with granulated sugar, because he actually had no idea what they really were. Sometimes they were prunes. He couldn't make sense of them being anything else. In the morning, he'd forget about it completely and wake at the same time as Leorio, inspired anew to begin asking him about Christmas as he brewed himself a mug of mint tea and settled at the table to watch Leorio race around his own apartment like he could never remember where he kept his own things that he needed to take with him every day.


	17. Making a List

The first thing Kurapika saw when he poked his head out of the bedroom at nine exactly was the Christmas tree still lit and the window blinds halfway up. Leorio had never closed them, nor had he unplugged the lights. Softly, Kurapika crept across the room and pulled the plug from the wall. The windows he left as they were. When he was done making coffee, he’d pull them the rest of the way up, since the clicking and rumbling sounds they made at the slightest movement were sure to wake up Leorio sleeping on the couch, and Kurapika wanted a bit longer of a head start on wakefulness.

Kurapika underestimated the loudness of the stovetop coffee maker’s hissing and gurgling at it built up pressure. He thought he heard movement in the direction of the living room couch and confirmed it with his En. Gradually, Leorio was beginning to stir. With the brightness of the light coming in through the windows, it wouldn’t be long before he was completely up and scuffling into the kitchen area behind Kurapika, asking in tired confusion why Kurapika was making coffee when he rarely ever drank it.

Kurapika wasn't about to tell Leorio he was drinking coffee this morning because he hadn’t got much sleep in the night. It'd remind Leorio of the reason why that'd been, and Kurapika wasn’t ready to confront all of that just yet.

With a sigh, Kurapika reached into a cabinet for a pot so he could boil water for tea. He heard Leorio rolling around on the couch. A few minutes later, Kurapika stepped out of the kitchen with two cups, one small and white with a serving and a half of coffee, the other his standard mug with hot water and a steeping tea bag.

Leorio was facing towards the back of the couch, away from the light and slumbering on. Kurapika set down both drinks and went to yank the blinds the rest of the way up as hard as he could. Leorio grumbled at the sudden burst of sound and curled up tighter into himself to escape. Kurapika unlatched the window and swung it open so that street noise entered the apartment at full volume. He then sat down to wait for his tea to finish steeping at the table.

“Wake up. The coffee will get cold.”

Leorio looked over his shoulder, checking that the coffee was really there before committing himself to waking up. The sight of it drew him from sleep faster than the noise had, and before long, he’d pulled himself up into a sitting position at the end of the couch nearest to the table.

“I want to make a list for groceries,” said Kurapika. The pen and notebook lay waiting next to his tea, at the ready.

“Of course you do,” mumble Leorio, lifting himself up slightly to reach the cup on its saucer and pull it towards him. He drank the small coffee down in three sips and then placed it back on its saucer with a definitive clink. After a small preamble of weary sighs, he rose to his feet and went to get dressed. While he was gone, Kurapika pulled the tea bag from his own mug, and then waited a small eternity for it to cool down enough to drink. In the meantime, he shut the window he'd opened to wake Leorio up.

“What do you feel like eating?” asked Leorio when he re-entered the living room fully washed and dressed. In his hands he was wiping the lenses of a pair of real glasses, not the flimsy looking teashades he usually wore. When he put them on his face, he transformed into a man who looked twenty years older than he was, instead of the usual ten.

“Nothing in particular,” said Kurapika. “I prefer fresh things, like vegetables.”

“Good, nice and healthy,” said Leorio. “The future medical professional within me approves.”

“Beyond that, we can just stock up on the stuff you have around here normally. Eggs, pastas, soups. I’d just like more vegetables. I don’t have any specific dishes in mind, and I can’t cook anyway, so, whatever else you want to get is fine by me.”

“Whatever else I want, it’s fine?” asked Leorio. “Are you giving me permission? Does that mean you’re paying?”

“Of course I’ll pay.”

“Well in that case maybe I need to restock the truffles, caviar, and lobster. Have you ever had a five hundred thousand jenni leg of black-footed pig fed on a diet of nothing but foraged wild acorns while roaming the hills of the peninsula half-wild?”

Kurapika shrugged, not even sure. “Have you?” he asked instead.

“No, but I will if you’re buying it for me.”

“Is that what you want for Christmas? The world’s most expensive leg of ham?”

“No, not for Christmas. For lunch. And then for lunch, breakfast and dinner for the next three weeks.”

“That’s like twenty-four thousand jenni a day on ham.”

“So?”

“Even if it’s expensive, don’t you think you’ll get tired of ham at that point?”

Instead of answering, Leorio just laughed in Kurapika’s face. “Tired of ham?” he asked himself, shaking his head. “Tired? Of ham?”

Kurapika stared down at the list. All that he’d written so far was “eggs” and then “pasta”. While Kurapika thought hard about what to write next, Leorio stood up and brought his empty coffee cup back to the kitchen.

“Coffee,” said Leorio as he stepped back into the room. He came up behind Kurapika and took the pen from his hand to write the word himself. Kurapika froze and watched as Leorio then added “vegetables” beneath it. A moment later, smirking to himself, he scribbled down “Dom Perignon”, “white truffles”, “beluga caviar” and then, a very long name Kurapika didn’t know but assumed might’ve had to do with the leg of cured ham.

“You sure you don’t still want lobster?” asked Kurapika after Leorio handed him back the pen.

“I can’t cook a lobster,” said Leorio. “I can only eat it on fancy dinner dates.”

“Yeah? And who pays for it for you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” said Leorio, nudging Kurapika in the shoulder with his elbow. “Anyway, do you remember if we need more tea? I never check the boxes, so, I don’t ever know.”

This abrupt return to business threw Kurapika for a loop, as he’d been too distracted trying to imagine who exactly would buy Leorio a lobster dinner. He couldn’t find proper words to answer the question about tea fast enough, and before he knew it, there was a warm hand planted on his shoulder and Leorio was sitting next to him at the table.

“Hey. Everything’s okay,” said Leorio.

Kurapika shrugged him off, but Leorio didn’t let go. 

“What are you even talking about?” he asked.

“You seem a little awkward, is all,” said Leorio. “A little, uh, uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not going to argue whether you are or aren’t.”

“Then why are you saying anything?”

“I just thought you might need to hear me tell you everything is okay.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Well, then, lucky you, I guess.”

Kurapika took a deep breath and returned to the list.

“We still have plenty of tea,” he said. “We won’t need more before I leave. Now, this beluga caviar you’ve added, just to you know, is going to be a little difficult to find in a normal grocery store. I’ve arranged several purchases of it in the past for work, so I know that firsthand. Believe me.”

“C’mon, you know that’s a joke.”

“I told you to list whatever you wanted….”

“Oh, please. Give me the pen so I can scratch it out along with the other stupid things.”

Kurapika pushed the notebook out of Leorio’s reach. “If you want it, I get it for you,” he said. “I don’t care. Put whatever you want. No price too high. I'm so rich you don't even have to consider it a Christmas present.”

Leorio rolled his eyes as he was forced to stand partway from his seat in order to snatch the notebook and pen from Kurapika. He scratched the last items off the list and replaced them with more sensible things. A minute later, he passed the notebook back. Kurapika skimmed over the additions, which were mostly normal things like salt and deli meats and bread. He frowned at the last item, however, and read it over three times, before swallowing and dropping the notebook back onto the table like it was on fire.

It was his name, but Kurapika’s brain stubbornly refused to make the obvious connection. When he looked up to ask about it, he only had a few seconds left before Leorio was leaning forward and kissing him. Kurapika wrinkled his nose at the chemical smell and astringent taste of traces of Leorio’s mouthwash. Leorio’s neatly combed hair was still damp from the quick, late morning shower he’d taken, so, Kurapika lowered his hands to Leorio’s sides before realizing he was embracing Leorio back at all.

“I have to make a new list,” said Kurapika unhappily as he came back to himself and pushed Leorio off. “This one’s a mess now. Full of your bullshit.”

“It’s fine how it is,” said Leorio. He plucked the notebook from Kurapika hands and ripped the page out with a flourish. “Let’s get going. You don’t even have shoes on yet. Go get them now. It shouldn’t be taking this long to leave and buy groceries. Hurry up.”

In a daze, Kurapika rose from the table to collect his shoes from the shelf by the door. He couldn’t stop clenching his teeth like he did when he was agitated or angry, except he wasn’t either of those things. The pressure in his jaw almost hurt and reminded him he was awake, and that the tall blur putting on a coat and scarf in his peripheral view was really the same Leorio he’d know for years and had watched drink coffee and rush around before work every day for nearly a month. As a matter of fact, during the two times their lips had met so far, Kurapika had found it somewhat hard to accept Leorio now and Leorio then were truly the same person, because he’d shut his eyes automatically and only had a recollection of how the kiss had felt in blind, safe, anonymous darkness.

And yet, watching Leorio pull his scarf through the loop around his neck, remembering the familiar gesture more than seeing it in the moment, all Kurapika could think about was kissing that same person, the same Leorio he’d always known, all over again.

Leorio was holding Kurapika’s coat out to him, and Kurapika took it as he stood, careful not to touch Leorio himself, as if that would be enough to break his resolve to hold back and wait until he knew whether or not Leorio were teasing him. Leorio, oblivious, joked about if Kurapika wanted the huge marshmallow coat instead, reminding him it was on the closet floor in the bedroom since it’d been too bulky to keep on the coat rack by the door. Kurapika muttered Leorio was welcomed to burn it for warmth as he finished zipping up his normal coat and fished his gloves and hat from the pockets.

“It never snows here except like once every five years, so, if you were hoping for a white Christmas, you’re out of luck,” said Leorio as they stepped out into the street. They were immediately met by a cold, dry wind without even a chance of rain, much less snow. “With your huge coat, though, you could disguise yourself as a snowdrift and scare people for fun.”

“I’m not fond of snow,” said Kurapika adjusting his scarf and following Leorio’s lead in the direction of the nearest grocery store. “I don’t live in Zhiscay for the weather.”

“I was meaning to ask about that. Why do you live all the way out there, anyway?”

“Work.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. And…uh, when are you going back? Back to work?”

Kurapika buried his hands in his pockets and pushed down until the front of his coat was pulled smooth and taut. It let in a rush of cold, which he didn’t mind because he’d been feeling far too warm all of the sudden.

“I took a month off,” he said. “So, maybe a week? I mean, if that’s okay. Maybe you were expecting I’d leave after Christmas with Gon and Killua, which I understand, since I didn’t have a clear plan what I’d do after Christmas Day.”

“Do you seriously think I’m going to kick you out if you overstay?” asked Leorio.

“Well I understand if you weren’t planning on that—”

“You can stay as long as you want, as long as you can, I promise,” said Leorio over him. “I’m not going to make you leave. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m insulted you’d even think that.”

Kurapika shrugged. “Maybe you have New Year’s plans. I don’t know.”

“I’d cancel them,” said Leorio matter-of-factly. “New Year’s happens every year. You, on the other hand, you never come to visit.”

“You wouldn’t have to cancel them.”

“I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“Or I could just go with you.”

Leorio’s step faltered and he looked over at Kurapika with surprise. “Would you want to?” he asked. “Would you want to spend New Year’s here and go someplace with me?”

“I probably would.”

“Even just another stupid party?” asked Leorio, seeming to doubt that Kurapika fully realize what he’d possibly be agreeing to if he said he wanted to spend New Year’s with Leorio.

“Sure. I’ve been to New Year’s parties before. It’s fireworks and countdowns basically. Drunk people. Music. Confetti and champagne. People shouting a lot when it’s midnight.”

“You could just eat lentils and watch tv quietly at home, which might be more your pace.”

Kurapika scoffed at the idea. “That sounds too boring,” he said.

“What? You’d prefer a party, then? Got a taste for the high-life, a rooftop party a week, a bacchanal and no less or you don’t even deign to show up?”

“No,” said Kurapka. His shoulders slumped in exasperation as he sidestepped a child who had run out in front of him from a shop door being held open by a mother with a baby carriage. “Big parties feel too much like work. I attend a lot of parties and events already for my job, and I always find them sort of uncomfortable.”

“A small party, then?”

“If I can hear myself speak, then sure.”

“With me?”

Kurapika shot Leorio a quick glance, but couldn’t follow with through looking him in the eyes as he said, as blithely as possible, “Of course you. Who else would I kiss at midnight?”

Leorio turned red, which made Kurapika laugh when he dared to look over again. “Unless you have someone else in mind?” asked Kurapika, only for the childish satisfaction of seeing Leorio squirm with embarrassment. “Do you want to spend New Year’s with me, or with someone else?”

“You. Sure. Of course.”

“Okay. Then, you can decide how you want to celebrate, whether with friends or not, but the condition that I stay is that I’m the one you’re with at midnight. Is that okay with you?”

“You don’t have to ask if it’s okay with me,” said Leorio. He stopped in his tracks and pulled near to a building, grabbing Kurapika by the elbow to pull him after so he could speak to him directly. “Look. From this point on, you don’t have to ask.”

“Ask?” said Kurapika, not daring the shrug off Leorio’s hand on his arm even if their sudden physical closeness was all he could think about. “What do you mean?”

“Remember like twenty minutes ago? What I wrote down on the grocery list, you idiot? If you accept that, then you don’t have to ask.”

“So we’re—you’re saying, we’re like that now if I want,” said Kurapika slowly. He wasn’t sure why what Leorio was saying was so hard to follow, except that it was so hard to really believe.

“If you want,” Leorio assured him.

“I see.”

“For me, I’m fine with it. I’ll do it.”

“Okay. I see.”

“But you don’t have to make up your mind one hundred-percent right away if you haven’t yet. Maybe you haven't. I don’t know. I’m just telling you that for me, it’s okay. It’s whatever. I’m open to it. You understand?”

Kurapika nodded. Leorio let out a sigh of relief and let him go. He stepped into the sidewalk again and pointed ahead to a red placard, saying that the grocery store they were headed for was only a short distance away. Kurapika had to trot to keep up with Leorio as he resumed walking, since, in a burst of anxious energy, Leorio’s stride had increased by almost double its usual length.

“Hey! Leorio! What are you doing here? Buying a Christmas goose? A turkey? You know, you’ll still have time to defrost it if you put it in the refrigerator now.”

Kurapika and Leorio turned around in unison towards a voice that had only called out to only Leorio from the opposite end of the frozen food aisle. Leorio sighed and looked like he was rolling his eyes internally when he saw who it was. Kurapika only stared at the man blankly.

“Oh, you’re that other guy,” said the man when he noticed Kurapika. “Kurapia.”

Kurapika nodded and didn’t care. He recognized the man somewhat, but his own guess at the man’s name would’ve been worse than the approximately close “Kurarpia”, because for Kurapika, absolutely nothing came to mind.

“It's Kurapika, and we aren’t buying turkeys or whatever,” said Leorio. “It’s not even on the shopping list.” He waved the folded slip of paper for emphasis. Kurapika was a little surprised by his short tone, but he also had no idea who the stranger was or how he and Leorio knew each other.

“You’ve got a lot of vegetables, though. I assumed you were cooking a feast,” said the man. “You know you’re not supposed to eat healthy and go on a diet until the new year has already started, right? Live a little during the holidays. Even you have to know that.”

“I’m living as much as I want to,” said Leorio. “Just fine. Don’t worry about it.”

The man smiled at this, like he was in on some joke between the two of them Kurapika couldn’t guess. Leorio responded with increased agitation and began to knock the shopping basket he held against his knees with obvious impatience, signaling that he wanted to keep on shopping if this man would be polite enough to let him. The man didn't seem to plan to. Now that he'd started talking, he wasn't going to stop, regardless of the obvious fact that he was intruding on Leorio's grocery shopping time.

“You’re not around much,” said the man. “Where have you been? I swear, it’s like at Christmas, I run into everyone I’ve ever known my whole life except you. You’re never out. Like, what? You can’t even get a drink if it’s the holiday season? Like it’s any different going out in December than it is in February? What gives? Can’t stand even the décor, the lights, nothing? You gotta stay in all the time?”

“I work,” said Leorio. He apparently knew the man enough to be polite and answer his questions, though without a conversational tone or going into unnecessary detail. “Everyone goes on vacation around this time, and I cover their shifts. My schedule gets all screwed up. I get called in at the last minute. Easier just to stay home. Happens every year.”

“Yeah, you need all the extra money for presents, I guess.” Leorio furrowed his brow at this statement, not following what the man was getting at. The man explained, “I mean it’s definitely easier to buy sick kids presents than to steal them, now that you’re an adult.”

A brief look of understanding dawned on Leorio’s face in a flash, but was soon replaced with an irritated frown. “I never stole anything, ever,” he insisted with a huff. “When have I stolen anything in my life?”

“Well, there was that kid who you always him got exactly what he wanted, every year," said the man, like he couldn't believe Leorio had forgot, or was at least pretending to. Leorio shook his head. "C'mon. You must’ve stolen that stuff, right? There’s no way you could've afforded that stuff as a kid.”

“No,” said Leorio. “I didn't. I always just asked around until I found the right people. Folks are more willing to buy a gift for a sick kid than they are to give him a cent, so, you know. The satisfaction of seeing a kid light up over a present is far more gratifying than watching them suffer and fight to survive every day on what little treatment you or they could ever afford.”

The man clearly didn’t appreciate such a cynical answer. He hung his head, looking put upon, and sighed loudly. He made sure to make an exaggerated show of it, probably for Kurapika’s benefit. Kurapika didn't know why the man thought Kurapika might take his side. There was no-one else in the aisle he could've been putting on such a show of exasperation for.

“Ah, I see you're the same as ever, aren't you?” said the man regretfully. He was shaking his head when he looked up again, caught somewhere between insincere apology and an apathetic shrug. “Sorry. I’d thought it’d been a while.”

“Been a while since what?" asked Leorio suspiciously. "Why would I change?”

“Well. You seem better off now. Happier, even. Things seem to be working out for you. Thought you'd lighten up by now, is all. But, you still want to act the same.”

“The same as what?”

“Just, it’s that negative stuff, how you think, you know? You’ll be happier if you see everything another way. If you'd just lighten up some. What reason do you have to be all negative still? It's been a long time. Get over it.”

“Who are you to decide?” asked Leorio. He gritted his teeth as he spoke, his grip on the handles of his grocery basket tightening as well. Leorio had a pet peeve about unsolicited and condescending advice, even if it was some someone in a grocery store he'd evidently known since he was much younger. Kurapika considered intervening, because the frozen vegetables in the basket were thawing by the minute, and they didn't have time for Leorio to get in a heated argument with someone.

“Hey. Don’t get mad," said the man in the exact tone that only ever worked to make the person they were talking to even more angry. "You always get so mad for nothing. It’s just a suggestion. I’m not telling you what to do. I just think maybe you’d calm down more if you didn’t have just a negative outlook, you know? Anyway, don’t blame me. You don’t have to follow my advice.”

“I don’t have to listen to it, either,” said Leorio. In an impressive show of restraint, he took a step back and motioned for Kurapika to follow him. “Goodbye, enjoy grocery shopping or whatever. I’m in a hurry.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” said the man, not sounding especially angry in return, but rather as if he’d already shrugged it off and decided there were some people you just couldn’t get through to. He muttered under his breath loud enough for both Leorio and Kurapika to hear about how “some people” could be, and “needing to calm down”, and “have a damn heart attack someday at this rate”. Leorio feigned as if he didn’t hear it. Kurapika, meanwhile, wondered if this situation might’ve turned out differently had he not been there. He quickly told himself it wouldn't have. It wasn't like Leorio had ever held back from making an ass of himself in public just because Kurapika was around. Why would he start now?

“People need to mind their own business,” grumbled Leorio once they were back out in the street. He’d hardly said a word while they’d completed their shopping except to send Kurapika back to the frozen food section of the store alone to pick up a few more things they'd needed. Leorio hadn’t been sure he could stand running into an “old friend” one more time. Of course, the man was already gone when Kurapika returned. Kurapika saw him again, though, as he was checking out. He didn't acknowledge the man in anyway, even when the man made eye contact with him and offered a small smile and nod of recognition.

“Yeah,” said Kurapika to Leorio in answer. It was a reply that left a lot to be desired, but he’d decided to stay out of this matter as much as he could. He doubted Leorio needed to hear much of his opinion anyway.

“Such a busybody,” continued Leorio. “Everyone here always sticking their nose in, making everything their business, acting like they know anything. I hate it. And they’re stubborn, too, which makes it worse. They never know when to shut up, because they never believe they have to. They should mind their own business and their own problems, instead of sharing their two cents no-one fucking asked them for.”

“It seems it’s pretty annoying,” agreed Kurapika. He opened the apartment door himself when they reached it, since Leorio was too distracted complaining and had volunteered to carry most of the grocery bags himself after Kurapika paid for everything.

“No. If it were only annoying I could stand it, but when you know that whatever you say will get repeated and transformed into something people thing you said…it’s beyond annoying. It’s a legitimate problem with some people that she many of them think they don’t gossip. They think they aren’t even trying to spread rumors, but at the same time, they misunderstand, and their misunderstood interpretation get retold along with all the embellishments they added to it, and it spreads quicker and becomes rumors. They don’t accept it’s gossip, though, or the fact that gossip isn’t always started with the malicious intention to harm someone. When you tell them they are gossiping, they get upset and defensive, and insist they are only concerned for you. They say that it’s just conversation.”

Kurapika was already out of his coat and boots. He took the bags from Leorio and carried them to the kitchen to start putting things away. Leorio dragged on behind him, starting to repeat himself as his complaints came full circle.

“No-one wants to think about how this country is shit. It’s too much effort to get riled up for too long. It’s easier to just talk about your neighbors and shake your head. It’s easier to just sit and do nothing and congratulate yourself that you’ve avoid the worst because someone is always having a much harder time than you. You want to speculate on that other person’s road to misfortune and tell yourself you’re smarter and better because you avoided it. You want to find the problems in everyone else to lessen the threat of your own unpredictable future. And any time someone tries to actually make a real change in something, you want to believe they will fail or that they’re suffering too much for it, because you want to justify the decision you make every day to sit back and not do a damn thing.”

Leorio broke off in a long line of swearing in his own language as he finished restocking the higher shelves Kurapika couldn’t reach as easily. Kurapika went to the sink and filled a pot with water. He was going to make tea, though he wasn't sure why, since he didn’t especially want any. What he wanted, he supposed, was a task so that Leorio wouldn’t see he was getting bored with the tirade.

“Are you going to work at one or two?” asked Kurapika at last, after a pause that'd gone on long enough for him to try out a change in subject.

“At two,” said Leorio with a sigh, already tired just thinking about work later. “I’ll be back around ten or eleven, depending on the train.”

“What times will you be around tomorrow? Gon and everyone want to call.”

Leorio visibly deflated at the reminder. “Shit. I forgot,” he said. “We should’ve bought more holiday food. It’ll look weird if we have like pasta over here, and they have a full spread. They’ll think we’re pathetic.”

“Who cares? Neither of use can really cook.”

“But to not even try….”

“They’ll just be more thankful for not coming here.”

Leorio frowned, but in a thoughtful way. “Is...that a good thing?”

“Maybe. It’ll give them an excuse to not feel bad about staying at Whale Island, at any rate. I’ll probably even offer to send all the decorations we have here to Gon’s house so that we can make a plan for next year to go there instead. Maybe it’ll keep him from changing the plan at the last minute. If we get his aunt involved, it'll probably be a guarantee.”

“That’s optimistic of you,” said Leorio. “I'm sure he'll just do whatever he wants all over again regardless.”

“I still have to try,” said Kurapika, surprising Leorio with the sudden rise of determination in his voice. Leorio laughed at him without replying, knowing there was no reply suitable. He left to take a seat on the couch. Behind him, Kurapika turned off the burner, abandoning the almost simmering water on the stove, and joined Leorio on the couch.

“It’s always such a waste when I have to work in the afternoon,” said Leorio after a loud yawn. “Makes me feel like the day never begins, because I keep thinking about how I have to head out to work later, so, I’m all day bored just waiting for the time when I have to go.”

“Yeah,” said Kurapika in perfect understanding of the feeling beside him. Leorio looked over, considering the normal, amicable distance Kurapika had set between them without thinking as he’d taken a seat. Kurapika glanced down as well and, then, after a deep breath, scooted closer. He inched over little by little until their legs were touching all the way down. At the same time, he brought his arm up and wrapped it around as much of Leorio’s shoulders as he could reach. His free hand he rested in his pocket in a last minute bid to look cool and casual, and then he sat still.

Leorio smiled softly to himself like he didn’t exactly believe this, but would go along with it regardless. He leaned forward and rested a hand on Kurapika’s knee while bringing the other around Kurapika’s back to pull him lightly into a third kiss. Kurapika was slow to respond, the gesture not coming to him with the same natural, practiced ease that it came to Leorio. He had to stop and think first, but soon, he was hardly thinking at all. Apparently there was an inverse relationship between the kisses he gave and received, and the amount of thinking he was able to do.

Leorio stopped himself to look at the clock before he got carried away. Kurapika suggested he set an alarm so he wouldn’t forget to leave, and Leorio told him he already had, but right now he’d set it a bit earlier in case he had to…fix his hair…or something. Kurapika scoffed and reached up immediately to ruin Leorio’s hair as much as he could. Leorio laughed and pulled him back in to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic needs one more chapter for reasons. I'll try to write it this coming week, and then hopefully this fic will finally be over. Thank you for enduring so long.


	18. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in my defense, I said I would “try” to get the last chapter out in a week. I didn’t promise I would absolutely do that, right? Sooo, here it is. Almost a whole year later.
> 
> (Almost, but _just barely not_...seeing how the last chapter was posted 5 February 2018 hahahaha oops. This fic got put so far on the back burner it fell off the range and, although I knew it was there the whole time because I heard the clatter when it fell, I was too lazy to move everything aside to pick it up for almost the entire year after.)
> 
> No beta for this last chapter, we die like...or well, we don't die. I'd say English despises me and my typo game enough at this point that death alone would be too easy.

A storm hit Whale Island on Christmas Eve, knocking the power out and making the planned video call impossible. Kurapika had spent most of the day by himself reading while Leorio was at work. As usual, he didn’t really mind the alone time…or well, he hadn’t minded it until it was almost time for Leorio to get back. Then the minutes seemed to drag on forever. Leorio ended up running late due to holiday traffic, but he came back bearing a box with a cake that his boss had given him. The cake looked more festive that any other food in the entire apartment, so, Leorio and Kurapika agreed to save it for whenever Gon and Killua finally called. Then, they’d take it out and set it on the table, and it’d look like they were eating real Christmas food in some serious Christmas ambiance.

“This is a stocking. Leorio told me to stop calling it a sock, but look at it. That’s a sock, right?”

Kurapika held up the green and red stocking to the camera for Alluka to get a better look. She laughed at him when the saw what he was holding. In the background, Leorio told Kurapika for the umpteenth time that it wasn’t a sock, it was only sock-shaped.

“We have those here, too,” said Alluka. The image on the screen spun as she picked up the phone and carried it to another part of the room. A moment later, Kurapika was looking at a fireplace lined with stockings hanging from the mantel. “See?” asked Alluka. “They’re hung by the fireplace with care.”

“Why there?” asked Kurapika. “The chocolate inside doesn’t melt?”

“I don’t know,” said Alluka. She called to Gon nearby, who was learning from Killua about a video game he and Alluka had brought him. “How is it the chocolate doesn’t melt in the stocking?”

“Easy!” said Gon. “Because Killua eats it all first.”

Killua grumbled and threw a bundled up wad of wrapping paper at Gon. Alluka admitted to Kurapika as she brought the phone back to the table that it was true. Killua had eaten all the chocolate in the house. If they didn’t stop him, he’d have eaten all the chocolate on the island, too.

“What else do you have there?” asked Alluka once she was sitting down. “Is there a star on your tree, or an angel?”

“A star,” said Kurapika, frowning. “Didn’t you see it when we showed you the  
lights?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Alluka. Kurapika and Leorio had already given her the full tour of the decorated apartment while Alluka and Gon had simultaneously given them a tour of Gon’s house, all the while comparing and contrasting what each place had. Alluka had promised to go out in the town later and film the lights so Kurapika and Leorio could see those, too. Kurapika said he’d try to get Leorio to do the same, and Leorio had corrected him from the couch that no, he wouldn’t have to try, Leorio was going to do it. He was already planning out the best route.

“Did you get any presents?” asked Alluka. The first thing she’d shown Kurapika and Leorio had been her own gifts, as well as Gon’s and Killua’s, but only now, over an hour later, did it occur to her to ask about theirs. 

“Um…” said Kurapika, not sure how to explain that he didn’t need gifts. He was worried if he said no outright he’d make Leorio look bad, like Leorio hadn’t cared. A moment later, as he still struggled to think of a diplomatic response, there was a thud. Leorio had plopped the boxed cake down on the table in front of the camera.

“I got this,” said Leorio. “My favorite cake.”

“That’s your favorite cake?” asked Kurapika in surprise before Alluka could respond. Leorio, hiding his face a bit behind the cake’s wide box, shushed him, and indicated he needed to play along.

“It’s a special holiday cake we only eat at this time of year,” said Leorio, popping back up from behind the cake as he pulled it back a little from the camera. “I bet you haven’t got this in Whale Island, kids. You’re missing out. Too bad.”

“We don’t have anything like that,” said Alluka after a careful look. “What’s it taste like?”

Killua’s face suddenly appeared over Alluka’s shoulder, arriving to the call at last to cast a curious glance at what the amazing cake he was supposedly missing out on looked like.

“What is that?” he asked, not sounding impressed. “Who got you a cake?”

“That depends,” said Leorio. “Does Alluka believe in Santa?”

“Of course not,” said Killua with a scoff. “She’s not a baby.”

“Okay, well, in that case, my boss. But, it’s a good brand, though,” said Leorio, turning the box around to read the label. “My boss didn’t get us any of the super cheap ones. I feel highly valued as an employee now.”

“Your only present is from your boss?” asked Killua. “Sad.”

“So says the kid who’s gift to me was supposed to be his company and then stood me and Kurapika up at the last minute. If it weren’t for my boss, I’d have nothing this year. Zilch.”

“Hey, now, we got you a present,” said Killua, pointing to the corner of the screen. “We got you Kurapika, didn’t we?” Only then was it obvious that he was pointing at Kurapika.

“It’s true,” said Gon, appearing over Alluka’s other shoulder. “We convinced  
Kurapika.”

“Yeah?” asked Leorio. “And what did you get Kurapika?”

Gon’s face when blank while Killua shrugged. “We made sure he had no excuse to turn us down,” said Killua simply. “We made sure he couldn’t back out of it.”

“Forcing him to hang out with me was supposed to be a gift for him, too?” asked Leorio. “You’re making that up. He ended up having no problem staying here for a month, and you’re backtracking, taking advantage of it and acting like that was your plan all along.”

“You can’t prove it wasn’t,” said Killua.

“But it was,” added Gon. “Whether you believe it or not.”

Leorio made an incredulous sound and put the cake down. Kurapika, who’d remained reticent throughout the exchange, finally spoke up, but only to change the subject to Christmas food on Whale Island. Gon happily began to recount different fish dishes while his aunt and grandmother supplied additional information he didn’t know. After another hour and a half, they ended to call so that Gon et al. could have dinner and play games before Alluka wanted to go out to film the lights and decorations in town. Kurapika and Leorio were once more left alone, the silence in the apartment strangely heavy after the boisterous presence of their friends miles away through the speakers of Leorio’s laptop.

“It’ll be dark soon,” said Kurapika. “We should get ready to head out around six. It’ll definitely be dark enough by then.”

“Yeah,” said Leorio. He was carrying the cake back to the bookshelf to place it on the top shelf. He’d already joked to Kurapika that cakes and sparkling wine counted as holiday decorations, so you had to put them where people could see if you had the space. Plus, putting a cake somewhere high up reminded him of when he was a kid and used to watch the rows of cakes up where he couldn’t reach, impatiently waiting for later in the evening when one of them would be taken down and consumed over the next few days. There’d always be a little debate over which one to eat and which to save for actual Christmas. It was serious business, rationing out such calorific cake slices over the holidays. Fortunately, he and Kurapika only had the one to deal with.

“I’ll film the holiday market, if you don’t want to go,” said Kurapika. “I think it’d be interesting to see. Is it open today?”

“Dunno about today,” said Leorio, straightening out his sweater that’d ridden up as he’d put the cake away. “But they’re usually open until January, so, there’s time between now and New Year’s. I’ll go with you if I’m not working.”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Kurapika made a doubtful sound, and Leorio sighed.

“Last time I was more worried about people misunderstanding and lording it over me later,” explained Leorio. He looked embarrassed, but it was hard to tell if either admitting this itself made him uncomfortable, or just his previous behavior and assumptions in general. “But, it’s not really a misunderstanding now, though, right? I don’t have to sound like an idiot trying to tell people they’re wrong about me and you, and then behind my back they make up reasons for why I’m lying about it. I hate when people act like I’m lying when I’m telling the truth.”

“Everyone hates that,” said Kurapika. Leorio rolled his eyes and sarcastically thanked him for his disappointing attempt at reassurance through pointing out the obvious. Leorio grabbed a book and a some notes from the desk and brought them over to the table where Kurapika was sitting, announcing as he did so that he was going to study a little before they headed out later. All the festivities and extra shifts at work were causing him to get behind.

“There’s another holiday after New Year’s, right?” asked Kurapika a little while later after checking his holiday notebook. The cover was starting to come off after only a few weeks, a testament to how well used and relied upon it’d been in that time. 

“It’s a few days in to January. You’ll be gone by then,” said Leorio. “It’s kind of more kid stuff. Food and presents.”

“It doesn’t sound that different from Christmas,” said Kurapika. “I’ll stay for that, too.”

“Are you sure? It’s just more candy and cake.”

“It’s an excuse to stay longer, though.”

“Smart. You can claim every holiday from here until summer as an excuse to stay longer, and then in summer, it’s summer vacation. You won’t ever have to work again.”

Kurapika furrowed his brow. “How many holidays do you have here?”

“Actually,” said Leorio. He paused and thought it over. “Actually, a lot. Shit.”

“After Christmastime, it’s February. There’s Valentine’s then, right?”

“You know what Valentine’s Day is?”

“Of course. I was a bodyguard for a teenage girl, Leorio. I know precisely what Valentine’s Day is.”

>“Ah, well, don’t feel obligated to stay for that just because we’re dating or whatever now,” said Leorio quickly. He paused and sighed. “Is it dating if you live like half a world away, though? Is it dating if you already know each other? All the people I dated before I didn’t really know so well before dating them, so it feels sort of insufficient to say you and I dating.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Kurapika honestly. “I don’t have much to compare this to. I work too much and don’t date.”

“Never?”

“I’ve never had time. If I did have that much time…” Kurapika trailed off and Leorio leaned in, anticipating more. “I don’t know,” said Kurapika. “I guess if I’d had enough time to go around dating people, I’d have used that time to spend more time with my friends instead. I wouldn’t think to date anyone before traveling and having fun with my friends.”

“I see,” said Leorio with mocking seriousness as he hopped up quickly to grab a pen from the desk. “So, you consolidated the two and now you’re dating a friend. Efficient. Ingenious. Bold. Very like you.”

“Leorio,” said Kurapika chidingly. “I don’t just like you because it’s convenient for me. Really, it’s not even convenient, if you think about it. We live in two separate places. We’re both busy all the time. You’re still a student and I—”

Leorio, who’d been heading back over to take his seat, cut Kurapika off with a kiss from above. Kurapika had expected this, since he’d seen the look on Leorio’s face before he’d leaned down, but he’d let it happen since it was easier to stop talking rather than argue reasons why dating Leorio was a hassle, as if any of those reason were going to motivate Kurapika not to. Even if traveling was a pain, Kurapika could afford it. If he started setting everything in motion now, he could easily move from Zhiscay to someplace more reasonable, too. None of the various inconveniences he could list were something he couldn’t deal with. If he wanted, he really could spend every holiday, vacation, and weekend with Leorio, and it wouldn’t affect his work too much. The only matter was that, once he had time for Leorio, he’d eventually also want time to travel with Gon and Killua, too. He’d want to actually visit Whale Island and go on adventures. He’d want to do something other than endure the drudgery of work and managing Nostrade business ventures. Instead, he’d want to live more the dream he’d has as a child, which was to explore the world with his friends and then come back home to share about the experience and tell stories about everything he and his friends had encountered.

>“You’re going to be stuck in this city studying for a few more years, right?” asked Kurapika after Leorio had already finished the kiss and sat down in front of his books. Leorio looked over his glasses at Kurapika and narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Why?”

“I’m just thinking,” said Kurapika. “Planning ahead.”

“Years ahead?”

“Perhaps.”

Leorio’s eyes widened, but he didn’t answer. He studied Kurapika a moment and then smiled slightly, shaking his head.

“I’m not going anywhere for a while,” he said with a shrug after a long pause. He picked up his phone and glanced down at it. “Plan as far as you want.”

There was a dull chime from Kurapika’s phone, and he looked down to see Leorio had sent him the prospective route they should take to film the best lights and Christmas displays in the city in walking distance. Kurapika set down the notebook he’d been leafing through and took up his tablet, ready to double check all the places they should stop. Leorio smiled again at how busy and focused Kurapika became in seconds, and then picked up a pen and went back to reading over his notes peacefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This fic was a fun last-minute thing I wrote during my break last year, and to be totally honest, I threw the words down on the page so fast I barely remember writing it. No joke, I had to re-read it now to finish up the last chapter, and I was genuinely surprised at a lot of what was in this fic, because, like, I...I kinda don't remember writing like 70% of it what.
> 
> Forgetting 70% of your fic has it benefits, tho, because then you get to laugh at all the silly punchlines and jokes all over again. It was like a Christmas present to myself a year later. Thanks, me. And now it's like I'm writing a comment to myself or something in my own author's notes so that I can let myself know I made me laugh at my own jokes.
> 
> Anyway! Back on track! Thanks for reading this, and I apologize to anyone who had to go back and re-read the entire fic because it's been [ _almost!_ ] a whole year.


End file.
